


You Can't Outrun Love

by siophiefandom



Category: Paily - Fandom, Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F, paily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 21:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16584107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siophiefandom/pseuds/siophiefandom
Summary: Paige McCullers runs off to Iowa to get away from Emily Fields and all the Rosewood drama, but Emily comes running after. This story follows canon (loosely) up through Season 6. None of the Emily's Eggs nonsense in this Universe, though... Rated teen for some adult language and adult situations. A bit more drama than usual from me.Originally posted on fanfiction dot net, 23 September - 11 November





	1. Hawkeye Hank's

_Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name._

Paige smiled as the words from the theme song to the old sitcom, "Cheers," filled her head, the way they often did when she stepped up to the door of Hawkeye Hank's, the bar that had become her local hangout since she moved to Iowa City.

Paige knew a lot about old sitcoms from the 70s and 80s, having grown up watching a lot of them on DVD with her father, back in the day. Back when things were simpler between the two of them. Back when they were inseparable. Back when she was his TV buddy, or his little champ. Back when she made him proud. Back before she discovered that she was attracted to women instead of men, and everything changed.

Things were simpler on the TV show, too. Norm, Cliff, and all the other regulars spent all of their evenings in the bar, but no one was ever drunk and disorderly, and none of them was homeless or derelict or dysfunctional.

In many ways, the world of "Cheers" was foreign to Paige. She didn't get why her father was so captivated with the show. It wasn't his lifestyle. While he might have the occasional drink after dinner or at a get-together with friends, he had no respect for men who spent their nights in bars. Whatever other faults he may have had, Nick was a family man. He came straight home after work, timed Paige as she did her laps, sat down to family dinner, and spent some quality-time with his wife, Maureen, while Paige did her homework in her room.

Paige knew that her father wouldn't have tolerated people the likes of Norm and his friends – people with no responsibilities who frittered away all their evenings in a bar.

It was an ironic twist of fate that she had become one of them.

When Paige came out to her parents, Maureen wondered out loud what she had done to turn her daughter gay. Similarly, Paige was sure that Nick would be torturing himself with guilt over the part that he'd played in turning his daughter into a barfly, blaming it on all those episodes of Cheers that they watched.

But after leaving her home and friends behind and moving to Iowa, Paige understood the "Cheers" culture; why the gang would hang out at the bar every night. It wasn't about the beer, despite all the jokes that Norm made about it. It was about a community; about people who didn't judge you. People who might not be like you or agree with your politics, but who enjoyed hanging out with you nonetheless. It was about not disappearing, unknown and unforgotten, in a faraway, Midwestern town with not much going on. In a world where it's easy to fade into anonymous solitude, it's nice to have somewhere where everybody knows your name.

Paige let out a sigh and put on her usual smile as she pushed open the door walked inside. Hank's wasn't a nightly thing for her, the way Cheers was for the regulars on the TV show. She showed up twice, or, sometimes, three times a week. And she didn't have a reserved stool, like Norm and Cliff's; she had to survey the crowd around the bar, looking for a familiar face to sit next to. But she wasn't prepared for seeing someone quite as familiar as the raven-haired woman seated right in front of the cash register.

 _Emily._  Paige's lips formed the syllables, but no sound passed through them.  _What the hell was she doing in Iowa City?_

Paige's first instinct was to turn around and call it a night. But if her high school days in Rosewood had taught her anything, it was that there was no use trying to avoid uncomfortable situations. They had to be faced head-on, because they were bound to catch up with you, sooner or later. She collected herself and headed up to the bar.

Paige inhaled slowly as she stood behind Emily, but before she could speak, Emily swiveled around. The faint smile on Emily's face disappeared as soon as her brain registered who it was who was standing behind her. Their eyes were locked in on each other, but neither was able to come up with a single word to say. They just stared at each other in a kind of mutual hypnosis until, finally, the silence was broken.

"Paige."

It was Madisyn, the redheaded, tattooed bartender, who had broken the spell with her indomitably perky voice. She tilted her head, as she always did when greeting a customer, and asked, "The usual?"

Paige shook her head quickly, to clear her thoughts, and broke contact with Emily's eyes. Emily, in turn, aimed her eyes towards Madisyn, as if in responding on reflex to Paige's shift in focus.

"I'll… uh… I'll have what Em's having," Paige stuttered.

As soon as the name passed through her lips, she realized what a huge mistake she'd made.

She could have gone along with what Madisyn suggested and ordered her usual drink. Or she could have said, "I'll have what  _she's_  having." She had deliberately used her ex's first name, to let Madisyn know that she knew Emily; that she wasn't just sidling up to some new cutie at the bar.

If only she had actually said the name "Emily." If only she had said anything but "Em."

It wasn't just a name. There was a whole history attached to it. It had started as a joke. Paige, ending one of the late-night, marathon texting sessions that were so frequent when they were together in high school, typed, "Good night, Em…ily." She meant it in a playful way – splitting Emily's name in two for effect – but Emily texted back, "Did you just text 'ILY' to me, Paige McCullers?"

Paige hadn't thought of that at all, but, when she saw it, she liked it. She really wanted to be able to say those three little words to Emily, but she wasn't sure how Emily would react. So, she played it off as a joke, denying it a little too vigorously in the secret hope that her over-the-top denial would make Emily think that it had been intentional.

"Noooooooo," she texted back, "I was just having some fun with your name! Honest! :)"

"Uh huh. ;) Sure, Paige! You know you love me." Emily ended that message with three kiss emojis. It was a gigantic signal, but, still, Paige wasn't ready to risk her heart.

"I've got practice in five hours," she texted back. "I'll admit to anything – just let me get some sleep!"

"Whatever. Good night, Paige." Emily added a heart and several rainbows.

That night's texting turned out to be a milestone in their relationship. They were finally able to say "I love you" to each other. And, gradually, the term "Em" took on an added meaning. It became a way for Paige to convey "I love you" in situations when she couldn't say it in so many words.

When Nick McCullers was looking over her shoulder after a swim meet, Paige would have to substitute a hug and a, "Good night, Em" for a kiss and the words, "I love you."

When she and Emily were in the middle of a heated argument, and Emily was feeling wounded and insecure, an earnest, "Look, Em" from Paige reassured her that the love was still there.

After they had been apart for any length of time, a simple, whispered "Em," when they met again said so much more.

So, Paige was kicking herself for having chosen that name, knowing how Emily would have interpreted it. The only worse thing she could have done in that situation would have been to have gone straight in for the kiss.

Emily, for her part, had no qualms about Paige's use of the nickname. It emboldened her. She gave Paige's shoulder a squeeze and, before either of them knew what was happening, they were engaged in a long, strong hug.

It was no coincidence that Emily had turned up at Paige's favorite bar that night. And it wasn't the first time that she had been there, since she, herself, left Rosewood behind and moved to Iowa. She and Paige had drifted apart since high school. Even though they both ended up back in Rosewood after college, they barely saw each other. And, in the two years since Paige took the assistant coaching job at Iowa State, they had fallen out of touch. Still, Emily caught enough of Paige's Instagram stories to know that Paige would show up in Hank's sooner or later. It wasn't that she was stalking Paige, necessarily. But she was curious, of course, and, given their history, it was only natural that she would check out Paige's stories.

There was often a girl with Paige in those posts – or, more accurately, a series of girls. Emily noticed that Paige's taste seemed to have changed in the half-dozen years since high school. Instead of the tall, athletic, type, Paige seemed to favor shorter, softer women. Or maybe that was just what was available in Iowa. Anyway, Emily wouldn't have been there if she'd thought that Paige was serious about any of those other girls. On second thought, she probably would have been there anyway. After all, she was the one who had a claim on Paige. It was those other girls who were poaching on her territory. And Paige had just confirmed it, by calling her "Em." God, she had waited so long to hear that. She had no expectation that it would come so soon. It seemed almost too easy.

"What are you doing here?" Paige asked, abruptly creating space between them - and knocking Emily back down to earth.

Emily was confused. Paige's tone was brusque, not surprised or eager. And Emily understood. This was the kind of reaction that she had prepared herself for. She and Paige had history – and not all of it was good. She knew, before she made the decision to leave everything behind and run after Paige, that she was going to have to work to get her back. Working to gain back Paige's love would actually be the easy part. Working to gain back her trust would be harder.

But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. For Emily, that step led to Hawkeye Hank's. Emily had spent every night there, over the past week and a half, getting the feel of the place, getting to know the regulars and Madisyn. She knew Paige; she knew that gaining the trust of her friends was a crucial part of gaining her trust.

"I…" Emily cleared her throat and managed a smile. "I live here," she said, using a drink from her wine glass as cover when she took a quick glance to see how Paige would take the news.

Madisyn set a glass of white wine in front of Paige and gave the bar a couple of swipes with her bar towel before making herself scarce. "Seems you two have some catching up to do," she said with a wink.

"What do you mean, you live here?" Paige's tone had softened somewhat. It was no longer challenging, but it was still far from welcoming. It was as if she suddenly realized that, if Emily really did live there, they would have to find some way to get along.

"I mean I live here!" Emily was trying desperately to stay upbeat, hoping that her mood would rub off on Paige. "You're looking at the new assistant coach for Coe College's women's swim team.

"Oh." Paige chuckled dryly. "I didn't know they were hiring."

"Well," Emily drew out the word, averting her eyes before she continued. "When I mentioned to Coach Fulton that I was looking to move to Iowa…" She dared a quick glance, again, gauging Paige's response to this new revelation– that she hadn't come to Iowa for Coe, but that she had come to Coe because it was in Iowa. "...she made a few phone calls." She let out a laugh that came out as a snort. "You know Coach… She's got connections everywhere."

Paige looked dumbfounded, as if she were trying to process all of this new information. Emily, biting her lip, playfully tapped her on the shoulder with her fist. "So, I guess that makes us rivals!"

Rivals. That was a role that Paige knew well, especially when it came to Emily.

"You  _wanted_  to move to Iowa?" Paige asked, incredulous.

"Well, yeah," Emily said coyly.

"You  _wanted._ To move  _here?_  To Smack-Dab-In-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, Iowa?" Paige seemed to be getting upset again. Emily touched her arm lightly.

"Paige." Her eyes were pleading with Paige not to make her say it out loud.

There was no need for Emily to say it. The answer was just as obvious as it had been when Emily asked Paige the same question about why she would choose to move to Iowa. Paige rattled off her well-rehearsed rationale – good opportunity, up and coming team, a new challenge – but Emily knew what the real reason was. And she had been gracious enough not to make Paige say it.

The pleading-eyes look from Emily was Paige's Kryptonite. So many times, Paige had crumbled under that look. There was that time at the hoedown, when Emily asked her to dance, after having been cool to her all evening - and all week, for that matter. Paige herself was wounded, but she couldn't bear to see Emily hurt. And there was that meeting in the hallway, after Paige had run into her in the coffee shop, on her way to a date. Emily wanted to talk. They needed to talk. But, seeing Emily like that, Paige surrendered, because talking didn't seem to matter anymore; not as much as taking care of Emily. And, finally, there at Hawkeye Hank's, after Paige had moved miles away from the one addiction she couldn't shake, there Emily was again, giving her that look again.

Paige could feel the familiar knotting in her stomach again. Her shoulders slumped in surrender, but before she could speak she was startled by a clap on her back.

"Paige effin' McCullers, where the hell have  _you_  been?"

The interruption was like a blast of ice water in Paige's face, jolting her out of her Emily-induced drunkenness back to sobriety. Andy, one of the regulars, was swaying back and forth on unsteady feet, drunk on something entirely different but just as potent.

Paige's smile was a little forced. "Andy," she said, softly but affably, "how have you been?"

Emily took a drink, and Andy, picking up on the movement, shifted his gaze to her. Paige remembered her manners. "Um, this is Emily. An old friend from back home."

Emily forced a tight-lipped smile in Andy's direction, knowing that the spell between her and Paige was truly broken.

So that was how it was. She was the old friend from back home. In that moment, she was stung by her own words from years ago: They weren't fighting. They were schoolmates. They once were teammates.

Emily cleared her throat and croaked out a greeting - from Paige's old friend to her new friend.

Andy, as drunk as he was, could sense that there was something more going on. "Oh," he slurred, pointing a meandering finger between the two women. "Was I interrupting something?"

Paige's head moved to the left, but she changed her mind before shaking it no. She smiled politely, exhaling through her nose as she did. As much as she wanted to avoid the conversation, she knew that they would have to have it sooner or later.

Andy took the cue. Bending at the waist towards Emily, as if tipping his whole body instead of a cap, he managed, "It was nice to meet you," and with a flourish in Paige's direction, he moved on.

Paige realized that Hank's probably wasn't the best place for them to have their talk. One of the disadvantages of a place where everybody knows your name.

"Where are you staying?"

Emily, still recovering from being introduced as an old friend, took a moment. "Huh?" She blinked twice to clear her thoughts as she rewound the tape to recall what Paige had asked her. "Oh, I've, uh… I've got a room at the school for a couple of weeks," she explained, "until I can get settled."

"Well, maybe we should continue this conversation at my apartment."

Emily nodded and began to gather her things. When she was thinking through the many ways that her first meeting with Paige could end, heading back to Paige's apartment had been the dream scenario. It was obvious, though, that this was not the storybook ending that she'd had in mind.

Moments later, they were seated on opposite sides of the round, wooden table in Paige's dining area. Emily's fingers were twiddling at the stem of her wine glass. Their drinks were the same as the ones in the bar, but the atmosphere could not have been more different. Paige chose the stark, rigid dining room table over the easy chairs and the couch in the living room, as if to erect some a literal barrier between the two of them.

Emily's leg was bouncing up and down beyond her control. It wasn't just nerves. It was cold in Paige's apartment. Paige always kept the temperature cold, whenever she had any say over it. But it was more than just the temperature. The whole atmosphere of the apartment was cold; daunting. And Paige, too. Paige was being cold. Emily had seen that side of Paige before, of course. They had had many ups and downs in their relationship. But Paige always came around. Emily smiled to herself, trying to take comfort in that thought.

Somehow, though, this time felt different.

Emily was on autopilot, rattling off her list of reasons for moving to Iowa – the list she had rattled off so many times before: A second chance, a shot a redemption, a fresh start in a town where she didn't have all that history and baggage to weigh her down. When she said those things to her mother and to Hanna, they immediately picked up on what she was really saying: Yes, all of her reasons applied to her career, but it was fairly obvious that each of her points was really about her and Paige.

If it had just been about the job, they would have tried to talk her out of the move, but knowing that she wanted her shot at love with Paige, they didn't argue. Emily had been buoyed by their optimism and encouragement.

Paige sat there like a marble statue - silent; stone-faced;  _cold -_ absorbing everything that Emily had to say. Emily shrugged her shoulders, indicating that she had said all that she had to say. The ball was in Paige's court. Emily looked down at the stem of her wine glass, as if not wanting to see the blow from Paige when it came.

"I…" Paige's forehead crinkled in consternation. "I don't know what you were expecting to hear, Emily."

Emily's heart sank.

Paige continued, "I mean, I just don't know what's changed between us, and why we wouldn't end up falling back into those same old patterns again." Paige gave Emily a look somewhere between condescension and compassion. She shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, good luck, I guess..."

_I guess?_

"… and if there's anything I can help with…"

Emily exhaled sharply, cutting Paige off in mid-thought. She wanted to cry; to let her tears spill into her glass and overflow the wine out all over the table. She wanted to fall into Paige's arms and wail like a frightened baby. She was willing to beg, to debase herself, to do whatever it took to get through to Paige, but that wouldn't have been fair. She wasn't going to let herself get into that pattern again. In the past, when they needed to work things out, Emily turned weepy and Paige turned maternal. They ended up getting back together without working things out. It was the easy way out. And it would have been so easy just to do that again. But that wasn't why Emily had moved to Iowa. She wasn't looking for a quick fix. Quick fixes tend not to last very long. Emily was looking for the real thing with Paige.

"No," she said, hastily getting up. "That's not why I got in touch with you. I'm not going to be a burden to you."

_Ouch._

"Emily…"

"I should probably go," Emily said, already on her way to the door. Paige got up quickly and followed her. "I'll see you around."

"Emily… Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Emily snapped curtly, before Paige had a chance to finish her question, which was whether she was okay to drive.

Emily stopped abruptly just outside the door and turned towards Paige, deciding to say the words that she'd promised herself she wouldn't. "I know you think that I'm not serious about us, Paige. But I wouldn't just pack up and leave my whole life, all my friends, and my family behind in Rosewood if I was just messing you around."

Emily turned around, not giving Paige a chance to retort, and jogged to her car, letting out a frustrated grunt as she struggled to retrieve her keys from her purse. She just wanted to get the hell out of there.

* * *

The drive home seemed to take forever. Emily felt like pulling over to the side of road and crying her eyes out – or just staying on the road and driving deep into the night; far, far away from everything.

Paige took a couple of steps back into her apartment, surprised at how unsteady her legs were. She finally gave in and collapsed onto the floor, her back resting against the wall.

In her heart, she knew that she had done the right thing. But knowing that it was right didn't make it any easier.


	2. Only Two Reasons to Move to Iowa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To any Iowans who may read Paily fanfics, please know that I don't share Nick's opinion... ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading!

" _Iowa?" Nick McCullers screeched when Paige broke the news to him. "Iowa?" His stare was piercing right through to Paige's soul. He was shivering in rage. "Now, you know, Paige, there are only two reasons to move to Iowa. Either you're running after someone, or you're running away from someone."_

_Through the years, Paige's father had come to terms, more or less, with her sexuality. They had struck an uneasy truce. He knew that she wasn't going to change, and he was pragmatic enough to know that he would have to learn to deal with it._

_But he had never come to terms with Emily._

_From Nick's perspective, Emily had taken everything from his daughter: Her shot at making captain of the swim team; her competitive edge; her heart. No father wants to see his daughter's heart broken. It's the one thing a father can't fix – so, instead, he takes it out on the one who broke it._

_Paige stood silent before him with her arms at her waist. She'd known him long enough to know how to respond to this kind of reaction. It was best to wait it out; let him blow off some steam and settle down._

_"Well," he sighed at last, "it's probably for the best. Getting away from that girl is probably the best thing for you."_

It wasn't just her father's musings about why people move to Iowa that haunted Paige as she sat in the hallway, worn out by her unexpected encounter with Emily at the bar and by their conversation afterwards. Paige was also having trouble letting go of Emily's words: "I left everything."

Paige was used to being the one whom Emily left behind. Paige was the one who had to leave everything – and even change who she was – to follow Emily. She wasn't sure what to make of the change. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, content to remain seated on the floor a little while longer and think about it.

* * *

When Emily got back to her room, she tossed her purse and keys on the counter and ran to the bathroom, where she grabbed a big box of tissues. From there, she ran to her tiny bedroom and flopped down on the bed to cry it out.

The room was too small. The bed was too small. Her life was too small. It was okay, she thought at first. After all, it was only temporary. Pretty soon, she and Paige would be looking for an apartment – or a house. She had approached it exactly as she approached competing on the swim team: She only had to put in the work and trust that the results would follow.

That had been the plan, anyway. After the conversation in Paige's apartment, she was no longer sure.

After a good cry and a few moments to get herself together, she retraced her steps to where she had tossed her purse and pulled out her phone.

"Emily?"

Hanna sounded groggy, as if she'd just been interrupted from sleeping, even though it wasn't that late. Emily looked at her clock. Somehow, it had gotten to be a little past 11 – in Iowa. That meant that, back in Rosewood, it was a little past midnight.

"Hi, Hanna," she sighed.

Hanna could tell by the tone of Emily's voice – and by the time – that it wasn't good news. "She wasn't there?" Hanna asked, assuming that Emily was getting discouraged by all of those trips to the bar without running into Paige.

"No, she was there," Emily said, her voice curiously lilting up as she spoke, and with an ironic chuckle.

Hanna misinterpreted her tone. She sat up in the bed with her legs crisscrossed, suddenly wide awake. "Well, all right!" she said eagerly.

"Yeah," Emily said, scoffing slightly. "Came right up to me, and we even hugged."

Hanna gasped. She was shivering with excitement. "No way! Emily! Is she there with you now?" Hanna almost whispered the question, in guilty delight over the fact that Emily might have been calling right before she and Paige re-consummated their relationship - or right after.

"No, Hanna." Emily suddenly realized how badly Hanna was misinterpreting things. "It wasn't like that at all. She…" Emily pulled the phone away from her ear for a moment and pressed it against her forehead in defeat. "She shot me down."

"Shit, Emily!" Hanna whined sympathetically.

"We went to her place, so we could talk, and she just… I don't know. It was just so cold, and…"

"Yeah, why does she keep it so cold all the time?"

" _She_  was cold, Hanna. She was just so… cold and… distant – as if she were talking to, I don't know, Jackie from French club or someone, not her ex-girlfriend. I mean, at the bar," (Emily chuckled bitterly.) "she even introduced me as an old friend!"

"Aww," Hanna pouted. After giving herself enough of a pause to be sure that Emily felt her sympathy, she softly prodded, "But, I mean, you can't really be surprised that Paige is upset. I mean, we both know that she was really hurt…"

"Uh…" Emily swallowed hard. She couldn't find the words. "You think tha…  _Seriously_ , Hanna?" Emily fought back the tears, taking to her feet with her arms flailing. "You couldn't have told me this  _before_  I gave up everything to chase after her?"

Hanna sighed, trying to be patient. "I'm not saying that it's over forever, Em. I'm just saying… Well, let's face it, we both knew you were going to have to work to get her back."

"I know," Emily said weakly.

"And, let's face it, you two have a lot to talk about."

"I know," Emily repeated, with a little bit of venom, this time. "You know…" she said with a huff, "even when we were hugging it out, and I thought that everything was good with us, I was going to tell her that we needed to talk. All those times we just papered over the problems or pretended that everything was fine – nothing got resolved. It's no wonder she…" Emily grew sad with what she was about to admit. "… she gave up on me."

"She didn't give up on you, Emily." The phone was silent as Emily shrugged her shoulders weakly on the other end. "This is  _Paige_ , remember? Has she ever given up on you? She just needs a minute to process things. You just need to be there when she does."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Hanna asked, with concern in her voice.

"Yeah. I'll be okay."

"Okay. I love you, girl!" Hanna said enthusiastically. "And Paige does, too!" she quipped before she hung up the phone.

* * *

The bad thing about leaving home and everyone you know is… that, well, you don't know anyone. Paige had her colleagues from Iowa State's athletic department, of course. And she had her friends from the bar. But there was no one whom she could call at 11:00 at night when she needed to talk through things. Not that she'd had very many people whom she could've called back when she lived in Rosewood.

There was Caleb, for one. Caleb had been there for her in the past. They  _got_  each other. They were kindred spirits, in a way. But she would have felt bad contacting him just to unload her problems, especially after all those years when she'd never gotten in touch with him. Truth be told, she would have been embarrassed for him to know that, after all those years, she was still suffering over drama with Emily.

And there was Emily, of course. Whatever ups and downs they had back in high school, Paige always felt that she could go to Emily. Almost always, anyway. She chuckled to herself at the next thought that crossed her mind:  _Maybe I should go talk to Emily._  She looked across the room to where her bike hung from a pair of hooks anchored to the ceiling and remembered that night when she rode through the rain to Emily's house, to apologize for the truly horrible things that she had done to her.  _And Emily forgave her._  Even without knowing the full story and everything that Paige had been battling, Emily forgave her. Perhaps that was why Paige had always been so quick to paper things over with Emily whenever they fought; perhaps she felt, on some level, that she owed Emily that much.

But that's no basis for a relationship; keeping a balance sheet of who owes what, with one person always feeling that she's in the other person's debt. At some point, they have to wipe the slate clean and start over, on equal footing.

Still, Emily had been willing to forgive and move on when Paige bicycled up to her house that night. It had been very mature of her, and it was one of the things that Paige admired about her. Paige even strove to be like her in that respect– only, she realized, when Emily had her bicycling-through-the-rain moment, coming all the way out to Iowa to reconcile with her, she had failed the test of being like her miserably.

Paige hung her head, resting it on her hand for another half-minute before, with a slap to her knees, she picked herself up off of the floor. She would have to make amends. Even if they couldn't be together, they could still move past their past. But there was no need to force it that night. Iowa City wasn't all that big, and the swimming community was pretty close-knit. She would definitely see Emily again.

As she headed for the bedroom, she thought to herself how much she'd grown to be pragmatic, like her father. Like it or not, she'd have to find a way to deal with the fact that Emily was back in her life.

* * *

Emily smiled to herself as she looked through the glass door at the rows on rows of treadmills in the gym. It was still early, way before dawn, so most of the treadmills were idle. In fact, all of them were - all except the one in the far corner, where Emily's eyes were pointed. That was the one where Paige was running, as if her life depended on it; as if she were being chased by a cheetah.

Emily wasn't surprised to find Paige working out at the gym, but, unlike their encounter at Hawkeye Hank's, she hadn't been stalking the gym, waiting for Paige to show up there.

She was smiling because she was picturing the look on Paige's face, even though Paige's back was to her. It was Paige's determined look: A thin, deep crease between her eyebrows; her eyelids narrowed to slits, her upper teeth digging into her lower lip, and her nostrils flaring with each footfall against the tread.

Emily took a long eyeful: Paige's strong, deliberate pace, the pounding of her legs, her arms pumping back and forth, back and forth. It reminded of the time that they'd gotten so worked up in Paige's backyard that they ended up going at it in one of the pool recliners. It was the recklessness of youth. Even though the darkness and the fence kept them out of sight from Paige's neighbors, the sound of the owls and the crickets wasn't enough to cover over the sounds of their passion. And every time a car passed by the front of the house, they were sure that it was Paige's parents, coming home early, and that she and Paige would have a lot of explaining to do.

Emily felt a tickle in her gut at the memory. It had been reckless, but it was beautiful. Afterwards, when they cooled themselves down by skinny-dipping in Paige's pool, it was perfect. They didn't have a care in the world. There was nothing to fear and no need to justify themselves to anyone.

That moment was one of the highest points of Emily's high school years. She would've given anything to be back in that place with Paige.

 _"Keep your eyes on the prize, Fields!"_  Emily could still hear Coach Fulton's voice.  _"Keep your eyes on the prize."_

Coach was right. Focusing on the trophy made the hard work tolerable.

Emily took another look at Paige – another moment to focus on the prize - before, with a deep breath, she pushed open the door and headed inside.

She could have taken any of the other treadmills in the room, but she chose the one right next to Paige's. There was no sense in trying to avoid her, even after their last encounter. They were going to meet in the gym one way or another, sooner or later. Emily put her phone on the mini-shelf in the front of the machine and started punching in the numbers for her workout. Her smile grew wider the longer she stood there unnoticed by Paige. She knew that, when Paige was in the zone, she was largely oblivious to what was going on around her. It used to drive Emily crazy. That kind of focus, though invaluable in the pool, could be dangerous alone in a gym at 4:00 in the morning. Paige insisted that Emily didn't need to worry about it and that she wasn't that bad, yet, in all the time it had taken Emily to set up her workout, Paige still hadn't picked up on the fact that she was no longer alone in the gym.

When Emily started running, Paige gasped and did a double-take, startled at the movement that she caught in her peripheral vision.

"Waaaaaaah!"

She let out a wail and slid wildly off of the treadmill when she turned her head and saw that someone was next to her. As she tumbled to the floor, the safety switch disengaged from her treadmill, cutting off its power.

Paige put her hand on her heart as she landed with a thud, breathless and with her heart pounding more from the shock than from the workout. Emily stood over her with a hand outstretched to help her up, laughing too hard to ask whether or not she was okay.

Paige swatted her hand away. "Shut up," she said softly, dipping her head with an embarrassed smile.

Emily didn't delude herself that seeing her was what had set Paige's heart racing and caused her to trip over herself. She might have thought that back in high school. Or, maybe if Paige didn't know that she was in Iowa, seeing her might have caused that kind of shock. If that had been the case, it would have been like seeing a ghost. As it was, though, it was simply Paige's reaction to the discovering someone right next to her when she thought that she was alone.

"What did I tell you about zoning out when you're by yourself?" Emily asked, again extending her hand. This time, Paige took hold of it and let Emily help her up.

"Since when do you work out at Retro Fitness?" There was still more than a hint of embarrassment in Paige's voice as she avoided Emily's question with a question of her own.

"Since the athletes started returning to campus for the semester," Emily explained. "I'd been working out in the gym on campus, but, now that the students are back…"

"You didn't want to have to deal with being hit on by all the baby jocks?"

Emily rolled her eyes. "I didn't want to have to deal with the  _crowds._ " she clarified, chuckling lightly. "Besides, I'm like an old woman to those kids. I'm so sure they'd be hitting on me!"

"Yeah," Paige asserted, staring deep into Emily's eyes, "they would."

"Whatever," Emily said, patting Paige lightly on the shoulder as if she were only humoring her. "Anyway, don't let me interrupt your workout," she teased. "I know how much you hate being interrupted when you're working out."

"Well, actually..." Paige looked away shyly. "I… I was just about to head to the pool," she lied, gesturing in the direction of the pool. She wasn't sure that watching Emily getting all hot and sweaty in her gym clothes was the best idea, when she was grappling with the need to maintain a "just friends" relationship.

"Oh, okay," Emily said, her tone upbeat. "Great – I need to get into the pool, too!"

"Don't you need to warm up first?" Paige asked, pointing to the treadmill that was all set up and waiting for Emily to resume her workout.

Seeing Emily in her gym clothes was one thing. Seeing her in her Speedo was another.

"I'll be fine," Emily assured her, "as long as I stretch out first." She punched Paige in the shoulder playfully. "You still remember how to stretch me out?"

* * *

"Ohhhhh… Mmmmm..." Emily inhaled sharply, her eyes closed.

Paige was doing her best to focus on a spot on the wall as Emily lay beneath her, her leg on Paige's shoulder, making the kind of moans that Paige hadn't heard out of her since high school.

"Oh, GOD, Paige!"

"You're…" Paige swallowed hard. "You're still pretty flexible!"

Emily sat up, her legs spread wide in front of her. "No one's stretched me out like that since high school," she said in a deep, unnecessarily sultry voice.

Paige dipped her head. It was obvious that their conversation wasn't about stretching.

Emily smiled coyly at Paige's reaction, grateful to know that her message had been received. She sincerely wanted Paige to know that there hadn't been anyone else. She might have had a workout partner or two; even a personal trainer. But there hadn't been anyone since Paige.

Paige jumped up to her feet quickly. "We should, um," she stammered, "We should probably get into the pool."

Emily groaned, extending her hands for Paige to help her up. "Ugh. Do we have to?" she whined.

She didn't let go of Paige's hands once she was on her feet. The two of them held their ground, looking into each other's eyes.

Paige looked conflicted. If she had said anything – if she had so much as flinched – Emily might have taken her right there; pushed her up against the wall, or pulled her down onto the cold, tile floor and claimed everything that she had moved to Iowa for.

Paige nodded, letting go of Emily's hands. "It's going to get crowded in here pretty soon," she informed her.

"Fine," Emily sighed, pretending that it was having to do laps, rather than not getting to do Paige, that had her disappointed.

Paige chuckled and shook her head.

"Uh... and what's that supposed to mean?" Emily pointed, her index finger making an air-circle around in the outline of Paige's face. She was smiling as she did it, even though her eyes and her tone were accusing.

"Nothing," Paige said, still shaking her head. "Well, it's just that…" Paige's tone turned playful. "Gosh, for someone who loves swimming, you sure hate to get in the pool!"

Emily rolled her eyes. They'd had this discussion a thousand times. "It's not the  _pool_  I hate," she reminded Paige. "It's the  _hour_. Swimming? Fun. 4:30 in the morning? Not fun!"

"You big baby!"

Emily's eyes got wide, and Paige knew that she'd better run. Emily chased her into the pool area and twice around the edge until Paige took a corner too fast and started to slip. Knowing that she was going down, she adeptly spun and grabbed Emily's wrist, pulling her into the pool with her. They came up out of the water laughing, and, for a brief moment, it was as if they were back in high school together; back in the pool together; back in a relationship together, without a care in the world. Emily put her hands on Paige's shoulders and pushed her under the water. Paige, trying to get leverage, accidentally put her hand on Emily's breast.

Emily tried to laugh it off, but she saw the horrified look in Paige's eye.

Overcome by guilt at her transgression, Paige put a bit of distance between herself and Emily by ducking under the lane marker and wordlessly starting on her laps.

Emily knew what Paige was like when she got that way. It would have been futile to try to talk her down. Instead, she started swimming in the opposite direction, ensuring that their laps were out of synch.

They had made progress, she told herself. It was like any training regimen: You don't expect to convert 30 pounds of fat into muscle in just one workout. You have to keep at it. She and Paige had come pretty far in a week. They had shown that they could still be friends, and that they still remembered the days when they were so much more than that. "Good progress," Coach Fulton would have said, with a hand on Emily's shoulder. "Keep at it, Fields." But those weren't the only words from her coach that came to mind as she swam a discreet distance from Paige.

* * *

_Coach rose from behind her desk, handing Emily a piece of paper with the e-mail address for Coe College's athletic director and staying for a hug._

_"Go get your girl."_

_Emily hadn't told Coach that Paige was the reason that she had suddenly become so interested in a job in Iowa. It had been obvious._

_It had been obvious to Coach two years earlier, when Paige called her up and asked her for advice about where to pursue her career in coaching, that Paige needed to get some space from Emily. For a while; not forever. Coach knew that they would end up together eventually. She had a sixth-sense about those things. She directed Paige to Iowa because it was in the middle - a little bit bigger than Rosewood, so that she and Emily would have some space (when Emily inevitably followed her there), but not so big that they could avoid seeing each other entirely. It was far enough from Rosewood to put some distance between them and the things - and people - who always came between them, but not so far that they couldn't come home from time to time, until they realized that Rosewood was where they belonged, and that they belonged there together._

_Coach Fulton would never have considered herself a matchmaker, but she was an expert at putting a winning team together. And she'd known for years that Paige and Emily were an unbeatable combination._

* * *

The two ex-lovers kept at their cat-and-mouse game for about a half hour, Paige studiously keeping herself a half-lap off of Emily's position in the pool. From time to time, Emily, growing bored of the game, would mess with Paige, changing her pace or abruptly changing direction in the middle of a lap, in an attempt to force Paige to swim next to her. Each time, though, Paige deftly adjusted her pace, swimming faster or more slowly to preserve that half-lap gap.

Eventually, Emily hoisted herself out of the pool, wiping the water out of her face, and sat on the edge, letting her feet dangle in the water. She patted her swim cap as she waited, making sure that it was securely in place. She wasn't going to wash her hair in the shower, so she didn't bother to take it off. When Paige pulled up to that end of the pool and saw Emily's feet in the water, she bobbed up to the surface, moving her hands and feet back and forth like a toad treading water.

"You're going to hit the showers?"

Emily nodded her head.

"Okay. I'm going to get a few more laps in."

Emily nodded again.

It was a familiar ritual. Back in their high school days, after people found out that they were together, they were always careful to stagger their shower times, to keep from giving their teammates something to gossip about. There in Iowa, the ritual was the same, but for a different reason. As many times as they'd seen each other in the shower, current circumstances called for some privacy.

"See you in the locker room?"

Paige nodded before taking one last deep breath and speeding towards the other end of the pool.

Emily let out a heavy sigh and stood, stretching her arms above her head and putting her right shoulder through a couple of rotations. She used her fingers to pull the bottom of her Speedo back into place as she turned and set off for the showers.

* * *

Emily was dressed and straddling one of the benches in the locker room when Paige finally emerged from the showers, her head and her body wrapped in the gym's white towels with a single Navy blue stripe. Emily greeted her with a sad smile; sad because of how formal and distant things had become between them. "I'm going to go check out the rest of the facilities," she said, letting Paige know (without saying it explicitly) that she was going to give her some privacy.

"Yeah," Paige acknowledged with a nod. "It's not a bad little gym, actually." She smiled softly, looking down.

She appreciated the privacy. But the fact that Emily had waited for her meant that she needed to stay and wait to say good-bye to Emily after she finished getting dressed.

* * *

"Hey," Paige said, stepping up to Emily who was looking at a couple of guys playing racquetball.

"Hey," Emily echoed. "You heading out?"

"Yeah."

"So… see you around?" Emily reflexively put her arm out and Paige came in for the hug. Emily lingered there for longer than seemed appropriate. Something was a little bit off, and she was trying to figure out what. She couldn't quite put her finger on it at first. She only pulled away once she realized what it was: Paige's scent was slightly different. Her freshly shampooed hair still had the scent of coconut and aloe, but it wasn't the same. It was as if she had switched brands. Perhaps it was hard to find Tresemmé products in the middle of Iowa. Or maybe it was just that Emily's memory was playing tricks on her. She stealthily took another sniff. No, it wasn't a trick of her memory; there was definitely something different. It was odd, she thought, how persistent the memory of a scent can be. Odd also that she didn't notice the difference when they hugged at Hank's; but, then, Hank's came with its own set of scent-markings. The aroma of a bar wasn't one that she and Paige were familiar with, back when they were together in high school. By contrast, they were very well acquainted with the smells of a gym near a pool.

"Emily?" Paige was giving her concerned look.

"Huh? I…" Emily chuckled slightly. "I'm sorry," she said, with a quick shake of her head. "I zoned out for a minute."

Paige nodded, acknowledging the obvious. "Anyway, I'll see you around?"

Emily shot her a comfortable, closed-lipped smile. "Yeah. See you around."

Paige trotted off and Emily, tugging the zipper of her warm-up suit up and down a time or two, watched her go. She felt content; optimistic. It had been a pretty good morning.


	3. One Step Behind

"Emily!" Paige came to an abrupt halt, putting her hand on her heart, after turning down an aisle in the supermarket and almost walking straight into Emily's shopping cart.

"Whoa! Slow down there, Paige!" Emily called out amiably.

Paige was looking at her strangely, silently. Emily was confused. "Paige?"

"Oh, sorry, I just…" Paige didn't want to admit why she was looking at Emily like that, so she lied, trying to make a joke out of it. "I… was just thinking that, if you spent a little more time in the gym, you wouldn't have to push that huge cart around" – she widened her arms to indicate how large it was – "for that small amount of groceries." Paige pointed at the groceries, which barely filled up one corner or Emily's shopping cart. "You'd have the arm-strength to carry one of these shopping baskets instead." Paige lifted the basket that she was using to carry her groceries and tapped it a couple of times, intentionally flexing her bicep as she did.

Emily rolled her eyes and patted Paige on the shoulder. "Well, unfortunately, we're not all blessed with guns like yours," she said. Giving Paige's shoulder a friendly squeeze, she added, "Killer."

Paige's head recoiled as she laughed. "Killer," she said, shyly looking away. "No one's called me that in years."

It was Coach Fulton who first came up with the nickname. It had something to do with Paige's killer instinct when they were competing. It didn't take long for the team to pick up on the nickname. Eventually, they started calling her "McKillers."

But, like most things between Paige and Emily, there was an extra layer to the nickname: one that was known only to the two of them. That night at Paige's pool, after Emily told her not to look away and they kissed in the moonlight, Paige responded, "I can't help looking away. You're killing me with those deep brown eyes."

Emily placed her hands on Paige's chest, just below the shoulders, and leaned in again. "You're the  _real_  killer," she said, in a soft, sincere voice. The kiss she gave Paige was so tender that it was hard to tell where Paige's lips ended and where Emily's began. From that night on, whenever Emily used the nickname, it served to remind Paige that it wasn't just a one-way thing; that while she may have been the love of Paige's life, Paige was just as much the love of  _her_  life.

"So, you're doing a little bit of shopping?" Emily asked, trying to keep the conversation moving before the moment got awkward.

"Yeah, a little bit of shopping," Paige said, resisting the urge to dip her head. "Hey, I was going to ask you, do you still have the same number?" Before it could sink in that she was asking Emily for her phone number, she quickly added, "Because I was going to text you, you know, to see whether you wanted to meet up at the gym sometime, but I didn't know whether or not you'd changed your phone number." Her voice trailed off as she realized that she was nervously going on and on.

Emily laughed at how shy Paige was being – after all these years; after all they'd been through together. "Yeah, it's the same number," she said, almost smirking.

"Oh. Okay. I just thought, you know, it might be nice to have a workout partner, you know. And, you know, since we've been partners –  _workout partners_  – in the past, you know…"

Emily nodded her head. "Yeah," she said, to let Paige off the hook. "That would be good." Emily added, "I'd like that," to fill in the silence. Paige still didn't reply. "Do you…. Do you need me to give you my number?"

"Huh? What?" Paige recovered quickly, rolling her eyes. "I'm sure I must have it stashed away somewhere," she said sarcastically.

"Okay. Good." It meant something, for Emily, to know that, however many times Paige had changed phones, she'd never deleted her phone number. She quickly thought to add, "I'm pretty sure I have yours somewhere, too." Even though she matched Paige's sarcastic tone, she genuinely wanted Paige to know that she hadn't let go of her phone number, either. "Unless… unless you've changed  _your_  number?"

Paige chuckled. "No, it's the same number. After all, Nick McCullers isn't about to figure out how to reprogram the old touchtone phone in the kitchen just because his daughter got a new phone number." Emily laughed spontaneously, and the sound made Paige happy, so she milked it a little. "Besides, it would be a toll call, if I changed to an Iowa phone number, and we know that, daughter or not, he's not going to pay for a toll call!"

Emily's laughter was contented, and she let her hand land softly on top of Paige's forearm. She'd missed that. She missed being friends with Paige, just shooting the breeze; sharing a laugh. "You're crazy," she said with a sigh.

"Well, the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, I guess…"

An older woman came up behind Emily, making Paige realize that they had been blocking the aisle. "Well, listen, I should probably…"

"Yeah," Emily said, sliding her shopping cart to the side, to create some room. "See you later… Killer!"

Paige smiled, despite herself. As Emily walked past, she said, "Bye, Em," so softly that only she could hear it. She immediately cursed herself for her lack of guts. "Oh, Em?" she called out. Emily, her hands on the shopping cart, pivoted at the waist with a wide, welcoming smile. "I'll be in touch about the gym," Paige said, looking Emily straight in the nose.

Emily, still smiling, nodded, and gave Paige a wave as she pivoted back around. It made Paige feel a little schoolgirl-y inside. She couldn't avert her eyes as Emily walked away, until the older woman, completely oblivious to the moment she was intruding on, cleared her throat and gestured towards a can of peas that Paige was blocking her from. "Oh... Pardon me." Paige reached for the can and handed it to the woman, who smiled wordlessly and walked off in a huff.

Paige didn't know whether to celebrate or to cringe over the fact that she'd used her pet-name for Emily. It was a big step for her, especially after she'd bailed on it just a split-second earlier, but, at the same time, she wasn't sure that she wanted to send the message that using the name "Em" sent. At least she had plausible deniability, using it when she did – as an afterthought; a quick way to get Emily's attention. That was, after all, the way that Emily's other friends used the name.

Emily was only slightly less ambivalent about Paige's use of the name. It was definitely good to hear, but maybe Paige was trying to normalize it; to change its meaning – especially after the way that she had used it in the bar. On the other hand, it came after Emily had used her pet-name for Paige, and Paige went out of the way to get to say it, coming up with an excuse to get her attention when she really didn't have anything to add to the conversation. It reminded Emily of that time she'd left a message for Paige and started to say, "I love you," out of force of habit. Paige, of course, must have seen through her attempt at covering – "I'd love to hear from you." – just as Emily could see through the way that Paige tried to minimize the use of "Em."

Whatever. Emily decided not to get too worked up over the name either way. She was on a journey, and she knew that it was going to be a long, slow trip. The important thing was just to keep making progress.

* * *

Paige shifted the basket from one arm to another and thought back to seeing Emily with the shopping cart. She just looked so mature; grown up. There was Paige, still looking like a college student, making a late-night to the convenience store to pick up some aspirin and tampons, but Emily was pushing a cart, like an adult; someone with a fully stocked kitchen and a fully stocked life, filled with grown-up responsibilities.

Emily was always a step or two ahead of Paige, on their journey. She was a leader on the swim team when Paige was still getting her feet wet; she was comfortable and settled with her sexuality while Paige was still in denial; she was ready to move on with her life, while Paige was still clinging to the relationship that they once had.

It was no wonder Emily always found it easy to leave Paige behind. Paige would have left herself behind, too, if she were in Emily's position.

"No," Paige said out loud, through gritted teeth. She wasn't going to fall prey to that again. She had come to Iowa to clear her head, and to stop measuring herself on the Emily Fields scale of evolution. She couldn't let the fact that Emily was back in her life throw her off course. Not again. She _wouldn't_.

* * *

Emily was on pins and needles as she waited for Paige's call. Well, not Paige's call. Paige had never said that she would call, and Emily knew how much Paige hated phone calls. They got her all flustered, even in the best of times. Calling up her ex would've been an even more flustering proposition. Emily could almost see Paige pacing around in her apartment, talking herself out making a call; convincing herself that it would be okay to send a text.

No call or text came that day, but that was fine. Emily briefly considered contacting Paige, but she decided against it. No need to pressure her. They were only going to be able to move forward at a pace that Paige was comfortable with.

It was twenty-four hours (almost to the minute) after their encounter in the supermarket that Emily heard from Paige. The timing wasn't coincidental. Paige, just as Emily had imagined, had had a tough time convincing herself that contacting Emily was a good idea, so she imposed a deadline on herself: She would have to reach out to Emily within one day. Sending the text ended up being as much about Paige accepting and meeting her self-imposed challenge as it was about setting up a time when she could work out with Emily. And that had been the point of setting the deadline in the first place. Paige knew herself; she knew how to motivate herself to do something that she was afraid of doing.

The text was terse and to the point. "5:30 Mon," followed by a thumbs-up and a question mark. Emily giggled to herself when she read it. Paige wasn't giving any feelings away. The text was all business. She imagined that Paige had chosen 5:30, even though it was closer to 4:00 when Emily met her in the gym the last time, to keep Emily from trying to negotiate a later time and draw the conversation out longer. In a fit of mischief, Emily briefly considered stringing Paige along; – asking a bunch of questions (should she bring coffee, where would they meet) and suggesting other times, just to frustrate Paige to the point where she would end up picking up the phone and talking it out. Had she been younger, she might have done that. High school Emily probably would have done that. But Emily was through playing games. She played it straight, sending back a thumbs up and adding, "Looking forward to it!"

* * *

Paige was on-edge Sunday night. She found it hard to sleep. Different scenarios for Monday morning's work-out kept going through her head. She was afraid that she would mess things up and things would end badly. She was equally afraid that things would go well and she would fall into her old patterns with Emily and end up on that old, familiar road again. That road led to a crash, every time.

If there was anything that she had learned in high school, it was that she and Emily could never just be friends. When they got close, their energy would either draw them together push them farther away. It was never neutral. That was why she ended up leaving Rosewood. Things were good when they were attracting each other, but something always seemed to interfere, so that they ended up repelling each other.

Something or  _someone._

Maybe things could be different in Iowa. They were adults, after all; not kids, riding a roller coaster of emotions and hormones. Maybe their energy had settled down to the point where they could just be friends and get close to each other without craving more.

And maybe the moon was made of cream cheese.

* * *

Emily noticed Paige's apprehension as soon as she got out of her car and saw her sitting on a bench outside the gym, examining her nails and, occasionally, biting them. She looked up with a game smile when she saw Emily approaching. Without thinking, when Paige stood up, Emily leaned over and hugged her. That was the way that she often greeted her friends; she didn't mean anything by it. It seemed to calm Paige down, to know that she could hug Emily without being overcome by convulsions of lust.

_Friends._

It was an important first step. After their workout, they still did their little dance – Paige lingering in the pool to give Emily time to shower in privacy; Emily lingering in the locker room, and, eventually, meeting on the sidewalk to say good-bye. They parted with a hug on the way to their cars, and set a time for their next session, on Wednesday.

Baby steps.

Working out together three days a week, as a couple of weeks went by, things began to become more relaxed; more familiar. They fell into the old rhythms that they knew from high school, and often shared a laugh about some memory or inside joke from those days of swimming for the Sharks.

"Why are you sucking for air, Ms. Fields? Why is your breathing so heavy? Just swim! Just swim!"

"Oh, God, Paige!" Emily couldn't concentrate on the treadmill. She was laughing to hard. "Holy…" Emily sighed heavily and pushed the "END WORKOUT" button, suddenly not in the mood to complete the whole thing. "God, you sound just like her!"

"No," Paige said, trying to control her own laughter, "You know who  _really_  nailed the Coach Fulton impression?"

"Sydney!" they said in unison.

"God, that girl…" Emily said wistfully, shaking her head.

"She used to do an impression of you, too," Paige said softly, as if she were admitting something that she wasn't supposed to tell.

"What?" Emily's head snapped to the side in shock. "How come I've never heard about this before?"

"Because…" Paige drew out the word as if the answer were too obvious to have to say. "You know how much she looked up to you. You were like a big sister to her. She would've died if you ever found out that she was impersonating you."

"So, what did she say? What did she do?"

"Just, kind of, put her hands on her hips" – Paige put her hands on her hips, with her elbows bending out at the sides – "and surveyed the perimeter." Paige slowly swiveled her head from one side of the room to the other, with a sober expression, nodding slightly from time to time. "You know the routine. 'I'm Assistant Coach Emily Fields, and I'm in charge, bitches!'"

Emily's jaw dropped. She was smiling. "She  _said_ that?"

Paige dropped her "Emily" impression with a shrug of her shoulders. "With her body language, yeah." Emily shook her head with a sigh. "I guess it was kind of intimidating for her to join the team senior year, as the new kid who needed to establish herself."

"Oh, so she was afraid of  _me_?" Emily shoved Paige playfully. Everyone on the team knew that Paige was the intimidator. Emily had always been the ambassador; the one who welcomed new people to the team.

"Well, let's face it. She was crushing on you." Emily rolled her eyes. "At least at the beginning."

Emily really didn't want to go there. Paige picked up on her reluctance. "All right, ladies!" she barked, lapsing back into her impression of Coach Fulton. She was clapping her hands rapidly and strutting back and forth, with the same scowl Coach Fulton always had when she was trying to light a fire under her team. Emily was standing at attention, as if she were lined up next to her teammates, and trying her best to suppress a giggle fit. "Nobody ever got anywhere standing still!" Paige shouted.

Emily shook her head in agreement. As Paige was about to continue, she blurted out, "Except on a people-mover."

"And..." Paige stopped in her tracks, surprised at Emily's retort. "Except what?"

Emily put her hand over her mouth to cover her laugh. "Or on an escalator." She scrunched her mouth close, to avoid breaking into a telltale smile. Paige rolled her eyes. "An elevator?" Emily squeaked out.

"Boy, you're really full of the jokes today, aren't you?" Paige observed, dropping her Coach impersonation.

But Emily wasn't finished. "Or maybe like a really crowded bus, where it's standing room only." Paige stared at her blankly, not sure how to react, or how much longer Emily was going to keep it up. "You know, because... you could still get somewhere... even though you're standing still," she stuttered haltingly, her voice getting softer under Paige's withering glare. She had to put her hand over her mouth again, to hide the smile.

"Ha ha," Paige said flatly. "It's just a shame that you weren't this clever back when Fulton used to say that!"

"Are you kidding? If I'd said that to her back then..." - Emily shook her head, looking off into space - "... I'd  _still_  be swimming laps. You know, like the time Syd and Jody..."

"Dumped a whole package of Tide Pods in the pool!" They were both laughing uncontrollably.

"And they dissolved like ten minutes into practice..."

"And once Fulton found out, she made them swim the rest of their laps in it..."

"But their suits were really clean!" Paige's laughter faded into a sigh. "Oh, God," she said, her voice trailing off. "I'd almost forgotten about that!"

"Jody had hives for like a week. Remember? Her mom threatened to sue the school for her medical bills?"

"Yeah, and Fulton threatened to send her the bill for draining and rechlorinating the pool!"

Emily smiled to herself, happy to be able to take some time out to share a good memory with Paige.

She didn't linger on the moment, though. She knew that she couldn't move too fast. She had a lot of ground to make up, and she was going to have to take it one step at a time. She took a deep breath and tilted her head towards the pool. "Are you ready for this?"

Paige put on her competition face and pumped her fist. "Let's do this!"

* * *

"Hey," Paige said, swimming up to Emily who was sitting on the side of the pool after finishing her laps. "Are you, um… hungry?"

Emily looked suspicious. "Are you going to try to get me to eat some of that ranch and Buffalo chicken pizza?"

Paige smiled shyly. "Well, maybe…" She was about to say that maybe it was a stupid idea when Emily nodded, squeezing her bicep.

"Well, I'll make you a deal." Paige looked confused. "If you promise no more weird-ass pizza, I promise no more forced viewings of 'Rudy!'"

"Hey!" Paige playfully splashed Emily, to protest the designation of "weird-assed pizza," but she backed down, realizing that Emily was right. "Okay," she conceded. "It's a deal."

"Okay," Emily said, smiling shyly. She tilted her head towards the showers. "I just need to hit the showers."

"Yeah." Paige nervously cleared her throat. "I'm... um... I'm going to cool down in the pool for a few more laps."

Emily tightened her lips and nodded, to acknowledge what Paige had said. She understood. The walls were still there. No skipping steps.

They rode to the restaurant in their own cars and had a pleasant time over pizza (pepperoni and extra cheese; nothing weird) as friends. Then, they got into their own cars and headed back to their own apartments.

"Well, that's good," Hanna said, trying to sound upbeat. "You guys are back to being friends! That's progress, right?"

"I didn't move to Iowa for a _friend_ , Hanna" Emily pointed out bitterly. "I had plenty of  _friends_  in Rosewood."


	4. The Laws of Magnetic Attraction

All things considered, Emily was content with the progress that she was making with Paige. She wouldn't exactly have described herself as "pleased;" she definitely would have liked for things to be moving faster. But things seemed to be moving in the right direction. Paige seemed to be more comfortable with the fact that they were friends, and, more and more, they were able to talk and joke around with each other the way they used to back in Rosewood.

They had fallen into a routine, working out together three days a week – Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays – with an occasional Saturday thrown in there. Even though the routine was set, Paige still texted Emily every Sunday afternoon to confirm that they were meeting on Monday. Emily liked getting a text from Paige every week, especially once Paige began including a cheesy, inspirational quote with each week's text. The quotes were always stale, worn-out clichés that sounded like something that a second-rate coach might tell his team, thinking that she was motivating them: "Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right," or "If it were easy, everyone would be doing it," or "It's your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude." Emily was only half-convinced that Paige was sending them as a joke. Part of her wondered whether Paige was genuinely trying to use them get her pumped for their Monday morning workout.

But, whatever the reason, the clichés gave her a laugh on a Sunday afternoon, and that wasn't a bad way to get her week started. There were worse ways to mark the beginning of a week than with a text from the woman she (still) loved.

Paige, too, looked forward to their workout sessions. It was nice just to have something to look forward to; a friend to look forward to spending time with. Even though moving to Iowa had been the right decision, it was still hard for Paige to be so far from home, friends, and family. Reconnecting with Emily brought a little of that back to her; a little bit of home. Not that Emily was Paige's home. Paige would never have admitted such a thing – not to herself, and certainly not to Emily.

Saturday afternoon workouts came to mean coffee or brunch together afterwards. It gave them a chance to talk; something they didn't really have when they were working out. And it was also a chance  _not_  to talk; just to be together. There were times when it felt like the good old days; times when it felt as if the walls between them had been knocked down. Even - or especially - in the quiet times. There wasn't that pressure to fill every moment with words; they could just be present with each other without the fear that a moment of silence meant that something was wrong.

Still, despite their progress, Emily felt that some barriers were still there; that Paige had fenced off the area around her heart, and would only let her get so close to it. It was frustrating, but nothing worth fighting for was ever easy.

* * *

"Emily!"

Emily was checking her texts outside the locker room when she heard Paige's muffled, urgent cry from inside.

"Paige?"

"Help!"

Emily rushed into the locker room and burst out laughing. "Oh my God - let me get a picture!"

"Don't you dare!"

"All right, all right," Emily said, moving towards the bench where Paige was seated. "I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Sheesh, calm down, Paige!"

Paige was in boxer shorts and halfway into her hoodie, where she'd gotten stuck. Her left arm was in the air, her right arm was on top of her head, and her hoodie was covering her face, the bottom falling somewhere between where her bra stopped and her navel.

She mumbled something unintelligible, but definitely not calm.

"Paige, seriously," Emily pleaded, "I can't get you unstuck if you don't calm down."

Paige, desperate to get out of the predicament, relaxed her left arm, letting it fall to her side. Her right arm was still stuck on top of her head.

"Okay, so..." Emily reached for the hoodie, not sure how to proceed. Paige writhed impatiently, only making it worse. "Hold still!" Emily yelled, smacking Paige on the shoulder. "God! What did I tell you about trying to get dressed when you're..."

 _Rushing._  Emily didn't say the word. Paige was already embarrassed and vulnerable. Emily didn't want to bring up the other time that Paige had gotten stuck while trying to pull her clothes on in a hurry. They had been "studying" on Paige's bed when they heard the front door open - and heard Nick McCullers start to make his deliberate way up the stairs.

_"Don't rush!" Emily whispered urgently. "Just stay calm!"_

_But Paige was already three degrees beyond calm, well into panic-mode. They would have had plenty of time to get dressed had she not rushed, but, by rushing, Paige had gotten herself stuck, her body half in her Rosewood Swimming sweater. Emily moved silently over to the door to shut it. She knew that they'd get in trouble for having the door closed, but it would be even worse if Nick heard her run to close it as soon as he started up the stairs. She needed the door closed for the precious few seconds that a closed-door would buy them._

_As soon as Nick rounded the corner, they heard his booming voice. "DOOR!"_

_Emily shuffled her feet, to make it sound as if she were moving toward the door to open it, while she was frantically trying to contort Paige's arms to get the sweater on the rest of the way on her. Once it was in place, Paige strode over to the door. As soon as she grabbed the door knob, she felt her father twisting it from the other side._

It wasn't funny at the time, but they did get a lot of laughs about it afterwards. Emily knew that Paige wouldn't find it funny to be reminded of it as she sat there, half-dressed in the locker room.

"... when you're  _impatient_?"

Paige grunted out of frustration and tried to force her elbow through the sleeve. Emily heard the seams pop. "Paige! Just..." Emily groaned. It was like trying to get a toddler dressed. "Just hold still and let me help you."

Paige let out an annoyed sigh, but she went limp long enough for Emily to maneuver the hoodie over her head. Paige closed her eyes and took a deep breath of air. She opened her eyes with a gasp, as if she hadn't realized how close Emily had been sitting to her (although, of course, Emily had to be close, to get the hoodie off). She jerked the hoodie out of Emily's hands and covered herself with it as best as she could. She hadn't jerked it away in anger; she was just desperate to cover herself. Still, Emily was wounded by the gesture. Paige had never had qualms about being in he locker room in her boxers and sports bra with any of the girls on their high school swim team, but she was covering herself as if she didn't trust Emily to see her half-dressed.

Emily stood up quickly and turned her back to Paige. Paige could read the hurt in Emily's body language. "I'll give you your privacy," Emily said curtly, and started to leave.

Paige realized how bad it must have looked. She wasn't upset that Emily had seen her like that. She was just embarrassed, and just for a moment. "Em...ily," she said weakly.

Emily stopped, but she didn't turn around. "Yeah?"

Paige walked up and took a step toward her. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

Emily, still facing away from Paige, nodded. "I'll see you outside."

 _We are who we are when we're at our worst._  Emily couldn't remember where she'd heard that, but she believed it. She knew that she had been horrible to Paige, at times; times when she was angry or indignant or resentful. Still, it hurt to see Paige, stressed and frustrated, no longer politely hiding her true feelings.

* * *

Emily began searching for an apartment in earnest shortly after that. It was obvious that her dream scenario of moving directly from the temporary on-campus housing into Paige's apartment (or an apartment that they found together) wasn't going to come true.

On moving day, the swim team (and some of their boyfriends) helped her move most of the bulky stuff. There were only a couple of suitcases and some boxes that needed to be shuttled over to her new place before she returned the keys to the old place to the administration office and completed her move. Paige volunteered to help with those.

Emily didn't really need the help, but, in a certain sense, she felt that Paige needed to help. It wasn't in Paige's nature to let work happen without being a part of it. Emily had actually had a hard time keeping Paige from showing up on the main moving day with the swim team.

Emily also felt that their relationship needed the help. They used to have fun doing things - anything - together, but, in Iowa, she really only saw Paige in the gym.

Even though there wasn't a lot left to move, it felt as if they'd been in the gym all morning by the time they were finished. When Paige stepped out to take an admiring look at the view from Emily's balcony, Emily came up behind her and handed her a beer. A beer - that was something different from their days in Rosewood. Paige chuckled shyly, raising the bottle in thanks.

Emily smiled sweetly and rubbed Paige's back in a quick massage of thanks. "How about I get a pizza?" She turned back towards the living room, and Paige followed, stopping at the couch while Emily went to find her phone and place the order. She noticed that Paige was sitting up straight on the couch, not letting her sweat-soaked shirt touch the couch, so she came back with a towel and handed it to her. "I worked you hard today," she said apologetically.

"I'm just lucky you're not my swim coach," Paige said, trying to make a joke.

Things got a little awkward while they waited for the pizza. Paige seemed a bit uncomfortable alone with Emily in Emily's apartment. Emily got up and got the remote for the TV and turned it on. She sat next to Paige on the couch, with her right leg - the one closed to Paige - bent at the knee, resting on the couch cushions, and her left arm, bent at the elbow, sitting on the back of the couch. It was a more relaxed position, and she hoped that it would help Paige to relax. She was switching through Netflix menus with her right hand and occasionally running her left hand through her hair.

"I can mount that for you." Emily turned from the Netflix options and looked at Paige, confused. Paige tipped her chin towards the TV, which was sitting on top of a stack of boxes. "I can mount it on the wall, if you want."

"No!" Emily exclaimed emphatically, then stopped to explain. "I'm not supposed to put any holes in the walls."

"Oh... Oh, right!"

Emily could see the wheels turning in Paige's head. She knew that Paige wasn't going to be satisfied until she'd solved this problem. "I still have to pick up some furniture," she told her. "I'll just get a cheap TV stand to put it on."

"Oh, okay." Paige seemed a bit disappointed. "Well, if you need any help putting it together..."

Emily smiled, shaking her head. "I appreciate that," she said.

When the pizza arrived, things got less weird between them. It helped that Emily gave up on trying to find a movie to watch and found a college basketball game. Shortly after the pizza arrived, Paige reached for the remote and muted the TV, still monitoring the game, but without the sound of the play-by-play to interrupt their conversation.

At around her third piece of the 12-slice pie, Emily noticed that Paige had gone quiet, so she looked up to see what was going on. Paige was staring at her with a patronizing smile, silently judging the way that she was eating her pizza. Emily was holding her slice of pizza with the thumb and index finger of her right hand, picking off pepperonis with the thumb and middle finger of her left hand and popping them into her mouth. The other fingers on both hands were pointed skywards. Emily, embarrassed at her dainty way of doing it, smiled shyly and avoided Paige's eyes for a split second before she remembered that this wasn't some first date; this was  _Paige_ , the woman who knew her habits inside and out and had seen her pick thousands of pepperoni slices off of her pizza.

Emily realized that she hadn't eaten pizza that way in years. Not since her freshman year in college. Pepperdine was a different world, and, for the first time since she had to come to terms with being outed in high school, Emily had worried about fitting in. So, subtly, slowly, she began suppressing some things. It was never the big things; she didn't try to hide who she was. She just didn't want to be teased over the little things, like the way she ate pizza.

The fact that she had lapsed back into the old pepperoni ritual was a sign that she was coming back to herself again. She rolled her eyes, knowing that Paige was going to tease her for it.

"Got something to say, McCullers?" she said sternly, trying not to break the façade by smiling.

Paige flew into a conciliatory position, throwing her hands up in the air and widening her eyes. The only person who ever called her "McCullers" was Coach Fulton - and whenever Coach called her that, Paige knew that she was in trouble.

"I didn't think so!" Emily smiled coyly at Paige's silence and popped another pepperoni into her mouth, with a wink to let Paige know that she was fooling around. Back in high school, she would've squeezed Paige's hand to make that point, but, given their current situation, she didn't want to push it.

Still feeling a bit self-conscious, and wanting to avoid another long silence, Emily spoke up without thinking. "Are you seeing anyone?" She didn't know why she asked it. It was one of those stock conversation-filling questions, but it really didn't seem an appropriate question for the two of them, given their history. Not to mention that she was pretty sure that, if Paige had been dating, she would have known about it.

Paige was only slightly caught off guard, but she didn't let it show. "Why," she asked wryly, "do you know someone?"

She meant it as a joke, but she regretted the words as soon she said them. She knew why Emily had moved to Iowa, and she had already shut that down. There was no reason to rub it in.

Emily took it in stride, though. "I'm new in town," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "Remember?"

Paige smiled back and nodded.  _Well, I'm sure you won't be single for long._

Paige was really glad that she'd caught herself before she said those words, even though she knew that they were true. Emily never had trouble finding female companionship. It was amazing to Paige how casually Emily could start up relationships - and how quickly she could move on from them. It made it hard for Paige to think that there had ever been anything special about the relationship they had. Certainly, their time together had been special to her, but, to Emily, she must've seemed like just another stop on the road.

That line of thinking wasn't getting her anywhere. And it wasn't worth dwelling on. Emily was her friend; that was all. Friends can ask friends those kind of questions. "No," she said, without elaborating. Emily scrunched her eyebrows, confused, having almost lost the thread of the conversation. "No, I'm not seeing anyone," Paige elaborated. She looked Emily in the eyes, but those eyes gave nothing away. "I don't know whether I'm just not in a place where I'm ready for a relationship or..."

Paige trailed off, so Emily followed up. "Or?"

Paige took a deep breath. She wasn't going to say what she was thinking -  _or I'm not totally over my ex yet_  - so she improvised. "Or, I just haven't found the right someone."

"Hmm." Emily tried to strike a supportive tone, all the while wondering why she wasn't good enough to be the right person. Actually, she knew the answer to that question. She would just have to change Paige's mind.

* * *

Paige heard footsteps picking up the pace behind her, trying to catch up, but she didn't slow down or turn around. It was too cold and miserable and wet. And she was getting drenched. Her hair was soaked, and she couldn't even brush it away from her face, since she had her arms wrapped around herself, trying to keep the body-heat in.

She really hated the rain.

"Hey!" All of a sudden, Paige found herself under an umbrella. She ducked slightly, to make room for her benefactor. "So, I see you still have that thing about umbrellas," Emily teased.

Paige rolled her eyes underneath her soggy hair. "Yeah, well, last time I checked, I was waterproof," She deadpanned.

She was annoyed at the rain, not Emily, but Emily was an easier target.

"Ha ha," Emily deadpanned back. "Well, waterproof didn't really help you that night when you wiped out on that slippery, rainy, road, did it?"

Paige dipped her head, still embarrassed over the events of that night. "Well," she said defensively, "an umbrella wouldn't have helped me either."

"I suppose not," Emily conceded.

Emily had thought, at the time, that Paige's accident was an act of self-sabotage. She saw it as Paige's way of taking herself out of the running for team captain, either rebelling against her father and all the pressure that he was putting on her, or out of self-loathing – subconsciously deciding that she didn't deserve the position, given what a horrible person she was (in her eyes). But, as she got to know Paige better, Emily began to recognize that pattern of behavior: Paige sacrificing herself in order to put Emily first. The ultimate example of that behavior was the note about Alison that Paige left for the Rosewood Police, choosing to try to protect Emily even though she knew that she would be sacrificing their relationship if she got caught.

"Just let somebody take care of  _you_  for once in your life," Emily said, impatiently. Paige tried to glare at Emily, but the rain and her droopy hair made it impossible. "You don't always have to be the martyr!"

Paige shook her head dismissively, but, in the end, she moved closer to Emily, fully under the protection of her umbrella.

"See?" Emily crowed with a triumphant smile. "Isn't this better?"

"Yeah." Paige hated to admit it, but it  _did_  feel good; not just the protection from the rain, but having someone take care of her. Having  _Emily_  take care of her.

* * *

Paige stripped off her wet clothes and took a long, hot shower after Emily dropped her off at her door. She had a lot to think about.

She had been very clear where she and Emily stood, and yet Emily was still there. If all they could be was friends, Emily, apparently, was still down for that.

It seemed that the tables had turned since high school. Back in high school, the time when Emily told her that what she needed was a friend, and the time when she declared that they had been teammates and that, perhaps, they could be friends in the future, Paige had stuck with it. In her heart, she clung to the belief that they were destined to be more than friends someday.

But somewhere along the way, that belief had gotten derailed.

Back in high school, Paige wasn't worried about Emily's disbelief. She knew that her belief was strong enough for both of them. Evidently, in Iowa, after Paige had stopped believing, Emily had decided to take the burden upon herself.

* * *

_**batcave5150 _** _ _paige mccullers! i had a feeling you were going to track me down._

Paige knew that she wouldn't be able to reach Caleb by phone. He never kept the same number for more than a couple of months. But she counted on the fact that he wouldn't stop monitoring his "emergency channel" – the old direct messaging account that he'd set up in high school; the backchannel that they'd used to communicate when they were both trying to keep their girlfriends safe.

_**dolphin_shark _** _ _yeah. i could use a little help._

_**batcave5150_** _ _that's what i'm here for. you know me._

_**dolphin_shark_** _ _thx. i guess i really just need to talk things through._

They had done a lot of talking things through back in Rosewood – about Emily, about Hanna, about being on the fringes of a town that wasn't really made for people like them. And, on a lonely night in Iowa, when Paige was up way too late thinking about everything, talking things through with Caleb seemed like a pretty good idea.

She was startled for a moment when her phone rang, even though she wasn't surprised that Caleb would call. Whether he knew that she was still using the same number or whether he tracked it down using his own methods, she knew that he wouldn't have to ask her for it. She smiled as she picked up her phone and saw that the call was from a blocked number. Some things never change. At least it wasn't creepy, like the blocked-number calls in Rosewood.

"Caleb?"

"Let me guess: This isn't about a problem with your WiFi signal."

Paige sighed. "No, it's not."

"Emily?"

"I mean, I moved halfway across the country to get some space from her, and – boom – all of a sudden, I'm right back where we left off in high school."

"Mmm," Caleb said contemplatively. "But you're not, really, are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Things are different. You're different. She's different. The situation's different."

"I don't know. I just see us falling back into those same old patterns, you know?"

"So, Rosewood wasn't the problem?"

Paige let out a long sigh. "It was  _part_  of the problem, I suppose, but…"

"Because, when you guys were in Rosewood, you used to say you wished you could get away from there, just the two of you, and take a shot at things without all the craziness of the town, and without all the interference of the people."

"I guess it's just not as simple as that."

"Why not?"

"Well, because, she's still Emily, and I'm still Paige. You can eliminate every other variable, but we're still the same people."

"You can't tell me that you're the same when you don't have Nick McCullers breathing down your neck."

"No," Paige half-whined, drawing out the syllable.

"And you know Emily's not the same when..."

"Yeah, but…" Paige cut him off before he could say the name.

"But what?"

"I guess I'd just like to think that, just once, Emily would choose me other than by default, you know? That, even if...  _she_  were still in the picture, I'd still have a shot."

"What are you talking about, Paige? She left 'her' in Rosewood and came after you."

"I know, but…"

"You still think that it comes down to a choice between you and Alison?"

Paige took a deep breath, trying to come up with a way to put what she was thinking into words. "It's like... Okay, did you ever do that field trip to the Franklin Institute in elementary school?"

"Uh uh," Caleb replied. "Remember, I didn't grow up in Rosewood."

"Yeah, well, anyway. They have this train room, and there's this exhibit on magnetic attraction."

"Maglev trains, sure!"

"Exactly. So, they have these magnets, and, when the poles are aligned, they attract. But then you flip a switch to reverse one of the poles, and they repel."

"Right."

"And that's how it feels, you know? With Emily. I mean, we always had this attraction; this...  _connection_. Like, somehow or another, we were always drawn together."

"You guys were made for each other."

"Exac... right! We couldn't just be friends, because, as soon as we got that close, Bam! That magnetic attraction would draw us all the way together."

"Mm hmm."

"Except, whenever Alison came along and flipped the switch, everything changed. I'm still there like an idiot, trying to stay close to Emily, only, now, the closer I get to her, the more it pushes her away. I mean, so, yeah, she came all the way out to Iowa because she 'chose' me, or whatever. But once Alison snaps her fingers, whatever I do, I'll just be pushing her away. And Alison will just keep pulling her in."

"Come on, Paige!"

"What? Am I wrong?" Paige exhaled heavily. "I've seen it happen! All of a sudden, she'll... create some excuse to pick a fight with me and, next thing I know, she's hopping a plane to... I don't know - Atlantic City or Paris or..."

"Paige..." Caleb cut in, trying to be the calming voice of reason.

"... somewhere, I don't know," Paige concluded, sounding defeated.

Caleb waited a moment, making sure Paige had the chance to get it all out of her system.

"Do you think I'm overreacting?"

Caleb sighed as he mulled it over. "Did you contact me expecting me to talk you down or tell you to go for it?"

Paige ran her hand through her hair and let it fall flat on the table. "Talk me down, I guess," she said, equal parts frustrated and annoyed.

"Well, sorry," Caleb said flatly. "I can't do that. Look, I get it, okay? I get what you're afraid of, and I get why you're worried about it. And, no, you're not crazy to feel that way. But, Paige, you need to think hard about what you're doing. You and Emily had problems in Rosewood because she couldn't get over Alison. It would be a shame if you have problems in Iowa because  _you_  can't get over Alison."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to subway20 for supplying some hints on how to write Caleb... Still didn't quite get it right, did I? :)
> 
> Oh well! Thanks for reading!


	5. The Coward Does It With a Kiss

Monday workouts were the worst.

Once swimming season started, Emily's weekends got incredibly busy. Since Coe was a small school, their team usually had to travel to competitions, and, since Emily was the newest assistant coach, most of the work taking care of the travel arrangements fell to her. She was the first one there on Friday night, making sure that the bus got there on time and that all her swimmers and their luggage and made it aboard. She was the last one in bed after the Friday and Saturday bed checks, and then she was up early on Sunday morning, shepherding her exhausted team back onto their bus for the trip back to campus. She usually crashed as soon as she got back to her room, putting on some mindless movie and lapsing into a food coma.

It wasn't anything like the wild weekends that she used to have back in college, but it was just as exhausting. Or maybe she was just getting older.

Whatever it was, she dreaded the thought of an early morning workout on Monday. The only bright spot was that she got to see Paige.

Paige was a beast. Maybe it was because Iowa State had a bigger staff - and more home meets - but, for whatever reason, Paige was never as wiped out as Emily was on Mondays. But she had always been like that. "Stamina," Paige used to say back in high school, with a lecherous raise of her eyebrow; "Staying power."

And, all these years later, Paige was still just as gung-ho on Monday morning, ready to hit the treadmill, smash it in the weight room, and destroy it in the pool.

On Mondays after Iowa State won, Paige was in overdrive, pumped up on an adrenaline high. If they lost, she was kicking herself, working out even harder as penance. Emily didn't know which was worse.

Emily was really tempted to forgo Monday workouts altogether. She stuck with them, though, determined to show Paige that she was no quitter. It wasn't only about not quitting in the gym, of course. She needed Paige to know that she wasn't going to give up on them when things got difficult. She would do whatever it took to make that point.

But she really hated Mondays.

* * *

It was Monday, so, naturally, Paige was in beast-mode on the treadmill and, later, in the pool. Emily didn't have to check the weekend scores to know that Iowa State had lost. She had seen this behavior from Paige before, back in Rosewood. Whenever Paige had a poor meet and felt that she'd let her team down, she'd take it out on herself in the pool. It was painful - almost physically painful - for Emily to see that Paige still punished herself; that she was still so full of self-loathing. She wished that she could comfort her the way that she did back in high school.

_"Hey, Paige... Take it easy," Emily pleaded. She was smiling, in an attempt both to lighten the mood and to hide her very real concern for Paige's health. "Save some of that for the pool!"_

_Paige huffed, rolling her eyes. "Don't worry. I've got plenty left in the tank!"_

_Emily's head snapped back and her eyes widened. "Oh, really?" She crossed under the lane marker, over to the lane where Paige had been swimming, putting her arms around Paige's neck. "In that case," she purred, "save some of that for me!" She slid her head in closer. Paige turned her head away, but Emily used her index finger to guide it back again. "Killer" she whispered, moving still closer. Paige closed her eyes._

_Paige's body untensed under the intensity of Emily's kiss. Emily tilted her head and Paige's moved in sync. When Emily's thumb stroked a path from under Paige's jaw up to her cheek, Paige's lips parted. Emily went in for the kill._

_Just then, one of the lockers in the girls' locker room slammed shut, and Paige and Emily scurried back into their lanes. Moments later, Shana walked in._

Shana _. Of course._

_They were back into their lanes, pretending that they'd been swimming the whole time, by the time Shana came in, but, it was pretty obvious from the smirk on Shana's face what had happened. Shana must have walked in on them making out and then hurried out again and slammed her locker shut, to let them know that they weren't alone._

* * *

Knowing that she couldn't help Paige hurt made Emily hurt even more. She cared about Paige; she  _loved_ her - and she would have done anything to heal her. But the days when Paige would have let her in were behind them.

Paige barely paused when she swam up to the wall and saw Emily's feet dangling in the water, the signal that Emily always used to let Paige know that she was about to hit the showers. "Don't overdo it," Emily said softly, sadly.

"I know," Paige replied as she turned and swam away.

Emily had a longer than usual wait for Paige after her shower. She tapped her toes on the tile floor of the locker room, repeatedly checking her watch, worried that she would be late for work. Eventually, she moved out to the sidewalk and waited, so that she could be closer to her car. If she hadn't been so worried about Paige's state of mind, she would have given up and headed to work, texting Paige to let her know that she'd had to leave. Instead, she texted the head coach to let her know that she was running late.

Paige came rushing of the gym in time to see Emily tapping out the text on her phone. "Oh," she said, surprised.

"Paige!"

"I thought you'd left." Paige dipped her head. She knew that she hadn't been a good workout partner, and she felt bad about it. She had hoped that they wouldn't have to talk about it. "I know I went long today," she said apologetically

Emily stared at Paige, her eyebrows crinkled in concern. "I wanted to make sure that you were okay." Her voice was earnest and soft. She didn't want Paige to hear the pain behind it.

"I'm fine," Paige said quickly, extending her arms for an obligatory good-bye hug.

Emily drew herself in and held Paige tight. She wanted, somehow, to transfer healing to her through the hug. She was doing her best to stifle the sobs that were coursing through her body out of her concern for the way that Paige was beating herself up, but Paige must have felt her labored breaths. She rubbed Emily's back up and down as the hug, longer than their usual hugs, went on and on.

Somehow, it had worked. Seeing Emily's distress had taken Paige's mind off of her own self-loathing.

Emily backed away from the hug, but Paige kept a grip on her arms. This time, it was her eyebrows that were crinkled. "Are  _you_  okay?" Her eyes were searching Emily's for any indication of distress.

Emily eyes kept blinking, trying to keep the tears from escaping. When she was able to get herself under control, she nodded, her eyes never leaving Paige's. "I'll be fine," she said unconvincingly. Paige kept staring at her, her eyes shifting slightly from left to right and back, her lips tight and her breathing steady.

Emily's eyes locked onto Paige's, matching their every movement. They were caught in the kind of stare that couldn't go on without consequences. The kind of stare that could only end one way. Emily felt the whisper of a breath as Paige's lips neared hers. She closed her eyes.

Kissing Paige felt so natural; so  _right_. It was even better than the memory. It was like being denied her favorite food for years and years, and finally being allowed to taste it again.

Emily could hardly believe that it was happening. Her stomach was fluttery. She wasn't sure what she was thinking, but there was no doubt about what she was feeling. Her heart was yearning, desperate for one more taste of what she had been deprived of for so many years. She stroked the path from underneath Paige's jaw up to her cheek, and Paige's lips parted. But as soon as Emily's tongue made contact, Paige panicked and jerked away.

"I'm  _sorry_!" Emily pleaded, holding onto Paige's hand, trying desperately to keep her from running off.

"No, no, it's fine," Paige said, with no commitment behind the words. She pulled herself free from Emily's grip. "I just, uh… I've just got to..." Paige twisted her wrist, as if checking the time on her watch, but she wasn't wearing one. "Shit!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to be so late!"

"Paige," Emily begged, "can we please just talk about what happened?"

"Yeah, yeah," Paige lied. Her face was turned towards Emily, but her body was angled towards her car. Her mind was miles away. "I'll give you a call. I  _really_  need to get going."

Emily, hands on hips, watched in disbelief as Paige sped to her car and then sped out of the parking lot.  _"Shit!"_

She really, really hated Mondays.

* * *

"Shit!"

Paige couldn't believe how stupid she'd been.

 _Each one kills the thing he loves_  
By all let this be heard  
A coward does it with a kiss  
A brave man with a sword

Paige had killed it. With a kiss.

_Coward._

That single kiss had killed the dream that she and Emily could ever be friends.

She couldn't believe how stupid she'd been. She couldn't believe that she was still falling into the same trap that she used to fall into in high school, her lips still magnetically drawn to Emily's.

Except she couldn't blame this on Emily. Emily hadn't tricked her or seduced her. Emily had been upfront with Paige ever since she first moved to Iowa. This one was on Paige; on her and her cowardly inability to control her cowardly lips. She pounded her fist into her pillow over and over, wishing that she were pounding something harder, something that would punish her with sweet pain. Anything to distract her from the memory of what she and her lips had done. Again.

Emily, too, wondered how she could have been so stupid. She had her game plan. She knew what she was supposed to do. It was like wooing a bird: Move slowly, deliberately. Show the bird that you're not going to harm it. Show it that you have something that it wants. Make it  _want_  to come to you. No sudden moves to scare it off.

But she got greedy. She let her feelings take over. She had scared Paige off. It would take ages to build up that trust again.

* * *

Emily wasn't too surprised that she didn't get a call or a text from Paige that night. That was how Paige was – when she messed up (even if it was only in her mind that she'd messed up), she'd take a step back and think about things. Emily wasn't too worried. She still expected to see Paige in the gym for their next session on Wednesday. Paige still needed to work out, after all.

On Wednesday morning, Emily waited in front of the gym for a full five minutes before she went into the building. She took her time stretching before she climbed onto the treadmill. Even there, and, later, in the pool, she was convinced that Paige would show up sooner or later, but she never did. Still, Emily didn't make too much of it. It was only one day.

One day became two, and that stretched into a week. Emily started to get concerned. She knew that Paige was chastising herself about the kiss, but she found it hard to believe that Paige would ghost her completely. She finally decided to set her pride aside and text Paige, just to make sure that she was okay.

_Been busy. Will catch up soon._

And that was that. That was all that Paige had to say. Emily's bed had never felt so empty. She had never felt so alone.

* * *

Paige hit the pool harder than she had hit it since she was back in college, training for the Olympic trials. She was swimming with purpose; swimming with anger. She was oblivious to everything going on around her, letting herself become lost in the water. It was just the two of them, Paige and her oldest friend, Water. The one friend that would never leave her.

And, off in the distance was the other thing she could never shake: Her father's voice.

She could almost see him, striding up and down the side of the pool, calling out her name over and over with an anger and an urgency that were contagious:

 _P: Power!_  
A: Aggressiveness!  
I: Intensity!  
G: Grit!  
E: Endurance!

Her mother denied it, but Paige couldn't help believing that that acronym was the reason they'd chosen to give her the name "Paige." Be that as it may, the words were fully ingrained in her head; in who she was. Nick McCullers had groomed her to dominate, to be a force in the water. And she had taken his lessons well. In the water, she felt invincible. On a certain level, she always felt that she could outswim any problem.

But she couldn't outswim Emily. No matter how hard she swam or how fast, Emily was always right there, just over her shoulder. Paige looked over her shoulder as she made the turn, half expecting to see Emily in the next lane, smiling smugly as she moved effortlessly through the water. Everything was always so easy for her.

_Why was everything always so easy for her?_

_Shit!_

That conversation had ended with a kiss, too.

Paige was back in that old cycle from high school once again. She couldn't swim her way past it. Once again, she had sabotaged herself with one cowardly kiss.

This wasn't how things were supposed to happen. This wasn't in Paige's five-year plan. Iowa had never been the goal. It was merely a stepping stone on the way to the goal. Five years: Enough time for Paige to get some coaching experience under her belt. Enough time for her heart to start to heal. Enough time for her to learn how to coach at the college level. Enough time to learn how to date again - how to  _love_ again. In five years, she would be ready to start a new life; a  _real_  life, out in California, maybe; maybe back at her alma mater. Somewhere far away from Rosewood, anyway.

 _Far away from Emily._  She might as well admit that. She was running from Emily, not from the craziness of Rosewood. Rosewood's craziness had a way of following people, no matter how far they ran. She hadn't planned on the fact that Emily would follow her, too.

Paige pushed herself even harder, launching herself with all her might from the wall as she turned for another lap. She pushed past the aching in her thighs - and past the aching between them. She pushed till she was out of breath, suddenly lightheaded. She could feel herself losing control, going under. She grasped desperately for the lane marker and hoisted herself up onto it, leaning on top of it, sucking for air. She wiped the water away from her face and rested against marker for a while, until her breathing stabilized. By then, her shoulders were heaving up and down again – this time, from crying. It was so hopeless. No matter how good she was, no matter how focused, no matter how hard she trianed, it was no use. Literally and figuratively, she couldn't swim away from Emily Fields.

Paige swam another ten laps, slowly and leisurely by comparison, to cool down. Her body was aching. She pulled herself out of the pool and sat in the front row of the bleachers, warming herself underneath a towel. Her legs were bouncing up and down and her shoulders were shivering. She needed a long, hot shower. Gathering herself up with a labored breath, she headed for her locker.

"E… Emily." Paige's voice was soft, and her surprised eyes were opened wide, as if she had been caught robbing Emily's apartment. She quickly looked away from her.

 _Emily was there_. Emily was always there. It was a like a bad dream – or some kind of cruel, self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Don't worry," Emily said with a forced smile. "I'm not stalking you." Her tone sounded more bitter than funny. "I'm just here because I forgot these in my locker." She held up a bottle of Ibuprofen to prove that she was telling the truth.

"Oh." Paige cleared her throat and looked down at her feet. "I… uh…"

"Switched to training at night, so you wouldn't have to run into me?" Emily scoffed, shaking her head. "God, it's just like when we were in high school, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," Paige said defiantly, finally looking Emily in the eyes with a cold stare.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean it's  _just_  like high school. Nothing's changed. When things start to turn sour in your life, all of a sudden, good old Paige McCullers doesn't look so bad after all. Remember? Better to be with me than to get stuck with mushy squash. Or when you finally figure out what a lying psycho bitch Alison Di Laurentis is, guess whose door you come knocking at."

Emily took a deep breath. She was strangely calm. She knew that Alison would come up when she and Paige had their talk, and she had prepared for it. "Paige," she said in what she hoped was a calming voice, "I know that I did a lot of stupid things because of Alison back in high school. But things were different then. I was… I don't know. It was as if I was under her spell. It can be confusing when someone has that kind of grip on you, especially at a young age. Especially when you're first finding out about love. And Alison had a way of manipulating me with it, of using it to her advantage…"

Paige, her eyes wild, leaned in. "Trust me," she bellowed, "I know all about that!"

She saw a look of shock on Emily's face, at first. As Emily processed what Paige had said, the look slowly turned into one of pain. "Emily," Paige whispered. She reached to put her hand on Emily's shoulder, but Emily twisted it away. "That's not what I… I shouldn't have said that. I'm not comparing you to Alison."

Emily shook her head, her lips tightened together. "No. You're right. You're being honest with your feelings. I get it." She slammed her locker closed. "I wish I'd never come here."

Paige raised her hands helplessly as Emily walked past her. She slammed her fist against the lockers, wondering how she had managed to make things even worse; wondering whether Emily meant that she wished she hadn't come to the gym that evening or that she hadn't come to Iowa at all.

* * *

Emily sat on her bed with her legs crossed, hugging her pillow as she rocked back and forth.  _Ten months._  She still had ten months left on her contract with Coe. She would have to tough it out in Iowa for another ten months. After that, she wasn't sure what she would do.

She had always envisioned going back to Rosewood eventually, but she never saw herself going back alone. In her vision, she would return as the conquering heroine, with her wife, Paige, by her side, ready to live out their happily-ever-after.

She would have felt like a loser, returning to Rosewood as empty-handed and alone as when she'd left.

There were plenty of high schools who needed counselors and coaches, she told herself. And she still had time to figure it out. She would just have to get through the next ten months.

* * *

Emily wasn't worried about running into Paige again. She just couldn't be so stupid as to stop by her locker at night again. Paige had proven pretty adept at avoiding her – the way that she managed to stay half a lap away from her in the pool.

No, running into Paige wasn't the problem. The problem would be talking to her mom. And to Hanna. She could only string things out for so long before she had to admit to them that she had been a failure; that moving to Iowa had been the biggest mistake of her life.

She needed a drink. She needed a lot of them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody need a hug? I know I do! :(
> 
> (Oh yeah - the poem is an excerpt from "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," by Oscar Wilde.)


	6. Gin and Vomit

Paige pushed the button on the intercom. She hadn't been expecting anybody. "Yeah?"

"Paige? It's me." Emily's voice was pleasant, if not enthusiastic. Paige went silent, and Emily, panicking a little, stuttered, "E... Emily."

Emily had shown up to Paige's apartment building because she decided that she wasn't going to go down without a fight. It wasn't over just because Paige had decided that it was over. Win or lose, she was going to give it her best shot.

"What do you want?" Paige replied, obviously annoyed.

That was it. Emily was trying to be the adult. She had promised herself that she was going to stay calm. But that question and that tone were too much for her to ignore.

She had given Paige space. She had given her time. Now, she needed to give Paige a good tongue-lashing.  _Urggh!_ She groaned internally, even more angry that she had let her mind go there. A good  _talking to._

"I'm here to deliver your pizza," she barked sarcastically. "What the hell do you think I want, Paige? We need to talk." Emily was tapping her foot, angry and impatient. Paige went silent - again - but, after a few seconds, Emily heard the buzzer, unlocking the lock and granting her entry into the building. Paige knew Emily to well enough to realize that she couldn't convince her to drop it. If Emily wanted to talk, they were going to talk.

Paige was scowling when she wordlessly opened the door to her apartment. It was a scowl of self-defense. She couldn't afford to crumble at the sight of Emily. Not again. They couldn't be lovers and, as the past couple of months had taught her, they couldn't be "just friends" either. So Paige had to keep the walls up.

Emily scoffed at the silent treatment from Paige. "Good evening," she said, leaning into Paige, to remind Paige of her manners.

"Won't you come inside?" Paige asked sarcastically.

Emily stepped into the apartment and waited for Paige to lead the way out of the foyer, but Paige just stood there, her hand still on the doorknob and the door still open. Seeing that Emily was waiting for her to make a move, she barked out, "You wanted to talk?"

"Here?" The tone of Emily's voice said,  _You've got to be kidding me_.

Paige took an unnecessarily loud breath and gestured with her hand to the living room. Once Emily sat down on the couch, Paige plopped down in the recliner next to it.

"Look, Paige," Emily spat out, "I didn't move a thousand miles to Iowa just to be a thousand miles away from you again."

"Yeah, well, I never asked you to move to Iowa."

"Well, actually, yes, you did."

"I..." Paige's voice got high-pitched in disbelief. "No, I didn't!"

"Yes," Emily insisted, her eyebrows raised and nodding her head. "you did! Remember? 'I want you to come with me, somewhere we can start over, just the two of us.' What changed, Paige? What's different?" Paige rolled her eyes.

Nothing had changed. That was the problem.

Emily leaned forward on the couch, closer to Paige. "Tell me that you don't love me anymore, and I won't bother you again." Emily let her hands drop against her lap in finality. The venom was gone from her tone. Her tone was completely flat. She wasn't pleading or trying to charm Paige into changing her mind. She just wanted the truth.

Paige looked up , swiveling her head to look at the three walls in front of her, and then at ceiling. "I love you," she admitted, throwing her hands up. "You know that. But it's not enough. At some point, I have to take care of myself - take care of my heart." She stood up and turned away from Emily, her arms flailing as she talked. "I mean, pain exists for a reason. It's there for self-preservation. At some point, the memory of burning your fingers has to be enough to keep you from playing with fire again."

Emily stood up and put her hand on Paige's shoulder, to turn her around. " _At some point,_ " she said, mocking Paige's words, the anger back in her tone, "you're going to have to learn to trust people again." As she headed towards the door, she added, "I just hope that happens  _before_  you grow into a bitter, old woman."

* * *

Emily gasped slightly, slightly startled by the ringing of her doorbell. Nobody came to visit her out in Iowa. None of her colleagues really knew where she lived, since she moved off campus. She had a brief jolt of adrenaline – a mixture of panic and anticipation – at the thought that it might be Paige at the door, but that jolt quickly faded. She knew that Paige wouldn't come. Not after that fight. Not after that "bitter old woman" comment.

Emily sighed and tugged at her shirt, taking a quick look in the mirror before she headed to the door.

It was probably one of her neighbors, she figured. She wasn't really in the mood for company, but she did appreciate the fact that people checked on her, far from home, in a small town where she didn't have family and only had a few friends.

"Who is it?" she called out pleasantly.

"Surprise!"

Emily's breath hitched at the sound of a female voice, but her excitement was short-lived. It wasn't Paige's voice. It was…

"Ali?" Emily opened the door, and there stood Alison, looking as excited as Alison ever got, with her arms outstretched for a hug.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well," Alison began, struggling to lift her suitcase with both hands as she invited herself inside the apartment, "when my cousin told me that he was going to present a paper at a seminar in Iowa, I just knew I had to come along and spend some time with my best friend, Emily!" Alison forced her way into another hug. "Isn't this great?" she said, stroking Emily's hair as she backed away from the hug. "I always knew that I would be the first one of your friends to come out to see you!"

Emily forced a smile. There it was. Alison had to assert that she was the first; that she was a better friend to Emily than all of the other girls.

"So… you're… staying… here?" Emily stuttered.

"Uh huh!" Alison was being beyond perky. "They're putting Connor up in a suite, but I insisted that I would stay with you!" Alison squeezed Emily's shoulder. "It'll be just like the good old days, when we used to have our sleepovers! You've still got that nice big bed, right?"

Emily's eyes went wide with shock for an instant before she got control of her feelings. It was only an instant, but it was long enough for Alison to pick up on it.

"I'm just kidding," she said softly, stroking Emily's hair. Giving the room the once-over, she gestured towards the couch, with an expression like a sad kitten. "This old couch is fine for me," she sighed. "In fact, it's perfect!"

Emily shook her head quickly to clear her thoughts. "No, don't be silly, Ali. Of course, we can share my bed. It'll be ju… just like the good old days!"

Alison giggled in the back of her throat and tilted her head to the side. "Well, if you insist!" She let out an excited shriek and hugged Emily again. "Ahh! This is going to be so much fun!"

Emily, her face shielded from Alison's view by the hug, rolled her eyes. A visit from Alison was the last thing she needed. Still, she was going to make the best of it. It would be good to have a friend from home for the weekend. She could use the distraction.

"Well, uh… I'm afraid I wasn't prepared for visitors. I don't really have a lot to eat here…"

"Oh, that's all right," Alison said enthusiastically. "I'm not really hungry. I thought we could start with drinks!"

Emily chuckled dryly, wiggling her eyebrows. "Drinks, I've got." She turned towards the kitchen, but Alison grabbed her hand.

"No, silly! I want us to go out! Hit the town! What's that little watering hole you're always posting pictures from? Hammering Hank's?"

Emily didn't bother to correct her. She was pretty sure that Alison had messed up the name on purpose – all part of whatever her little game was. "Oh," Emily said dismissively, "You must be exhausted after that long drive. We can just have a quick drink here, and then I'll order some Chinese for dinner."

"Nope!" Alison's voice was animated, to make the point that she wasn't tired. "I'm fresh as a daisy! Connor  _insisted_  on driving the whole way." Alison shrugged her shoulders, chuckling. "He doesn't trust me behind the wheel."

Emily cringed internally, knowing that there must have been some subtle manipulation on Alison's part to get Connor to come to that conclusion. "Honestly, Ali…" Emily looked her in the eye, for perhaps the first time since she opened the door. "Hank's is more like a dive bar. There are better places to go for a drink. I can take you to…"

"Oh." Alison's voice was subdued. She turned away from Emily. "I get it. You don't want your  _girlfriend_  to see you with me."

"She's not my girlfriend!" The words came out too quickly, on reflex; before Emily could stop herself from falling into what she knew was Alison's trap.

Alison smirked. But by the time she turned to face Emily again, the smirk had morphed into a smile. "Well, then," she said slowly, "there's no reason for us not to go to Hank's then, is there?"

Emily sighed, doing her best not to roll her eyes. "I suppose not."

"Great!" Alison pressed her cheek to Emily's in another quick hug. She was certainly being touchy-feely. Emily knew exactly why. "Just give me a minute to put on my face!" Alison picked up her overnight bag and headed towards the other part of the apartment, calling out as she walked away from Emily, "Connor had the heat cranked up for the whole trip, and that dry air definitely didn't do my skin any favors!"

If they had been on better terms, Emily would have texted Paige, to warn her that Alison was in town. But, the way things were between them, that option was off the table. If she texted Paige, Paige would take it as proof that Emily had, once again, fallen back into Alison's arms. And if she just showed up at Hank's with Alison, Paige would take it as an ambush. Emily was damned if she did and damned if she didn't. The only thing she could do was pray that this would be one of the nights when Paige didn't show up at Hank's.

* * *

Emily did a quick sweep of the room when they walked in. Paige wasn't in her normal spot. As Emily's eyes continued, though, they met up with Paige's, at the other end of the bar, holding a beer in each hand. Paige looked crestfallen, for an instant, at the sight of Emily and Alison. That look quickly morphed into something else that was hard for Emily to characterize. It wasn't rage, although it was just as strong an emotion. It was more like defiance.

Emily hustled Alison into a booth, hoping that Alison hadn't spotted Paige. But that was ridiculous. Of course, she had spotted Paige. Emily could only hope that Alison wasn't going to start anything. She had made her power move; she had shown up with Emily on Paige's turf. Maybe that would be enough for her.

Alison smiled smugly. Things were falling into place nicely. Emily had been nervous since she first let her into her apartment, and she was in a full-on panic, once that the three of them were in the same room. Nervousness and panic meant that Emily would be off her game. There was no need to confront Paige directly. Emily was sending Paige a strong enough message just by being so jittery.

Paige couldn't believe what was happening. She didn't care what the reason behind it was – whether Emily was making some kind of statement, to get back at her for the rejection, or whether it was just Alison needling her, up to her old games. Whatever it was, it was total bullshit. She had moved away from Rosewood to get away from stupid games like this. But not only had  _Emily_  followed her, the  _bullshit_  had followed her, too. Everything inside her wanted to run away. But she didn't. She was through running. She was going to stand her ground. As she had predicted, Emily was never going to get over Alison. That was the reality. The only option left was for Paige to get over Emily. And that meant not freaking out when she showed up at Hank's with Alison.

Paige stood there calmly, talking to her friends, drinking her beer. She took a sip, and then another, and, next thing she knew, her glass was empty. She had been consciously trying not to rush, and yet she had downed her tall glass of beer in less than two minutes.

 _Fuck it._  Her face was getting flushed. She was beginning to feel very warm. Her friend looked at her, concerned, as she started fanning herself to try to cool down.

"Are you okay?"

Paige nodded quickly. "I'm just going to step outside for a second. Get some air."

"Do you want some company?"

Paige shook her head. "Actually, I think I might just call it a night."

Emily looked up from whatever Alison was saying when she caught sight of Paige's movement in the corner of her eye. Paige was heading towards the bathroom – but that was also the way to the back door. Emily stood quickly and excused herself. "I'm going to run to the ladies' room."

"I'll go with you!" Alison put her hands on the table, about to stand up, but Emily froze her in place with a scowl. "Or, I could just wait here," Alison said to herself, throwing her hands up in surrender.

Emily walked calmly for as long as she was in Alison's line of sight, and then rushed after Paige. "Paige," she pleaded, just as Paige's hand hit the door. Paige turned around but didn't stop moving, using her back to push the door open. "She just showed up," Emily said earnestly. "And she insisted on coming here. I… I tried to talk her out of it!" Emily realized how pathetic her explanations sounded, even though they were true.

"You know what, Emily?" Paige said, exasperated. "I don't care anymore." She threw her hands up and let them fall against her thighs. "Have a nice evening." Paige turned and walked away. "Have a nice life."

"Paige… Paige!" Emily was almost crying, but Paige didn't stop. Emily grunted out loud and kicked the door. She was absolutely furious – at Alison.

"Did Paige leave?" Alison asked, playing innocent, when Emily returned to the table.

"Shut up, Alison." Emily was not in the mood.

"I beg your pardon?" Alison tried to be defiant.

"You heard me. Okay. You had your fun. You won. You upset my friend and drove an even bigger wedge between us. Game's over." Emily pulled on her coat, without a word to Alison about the fact that they were leaving.

Alison stood up and started to put her coat on, too. "Maybe it would be better if I stayed in Connor's suite tonight," she said softly.

"Yeah, maybe," Emily barked back.

Emily didn't even look at Alison on the drive back to her apartment. If she had, she would have seen the smug smirk on her face. It didn't matter that Emily was mad at her. The evening wasn't about Emily. She knew that Emily wasn't going to fall for her again, but, fortunately, she no longer needed her to. It was enough for Paige to see the two of them together – to see that Emily wouldn't think twice about taking her – the person Paige hated most – right into Paige's territory. That was enough to crush Paige's spirit.

Alison didn't want Emily. She just didn't want Emily with Paige.

* * *

Paige considered staying away from Hawkeye Hank's for a couple of weeks, until she was certain that Alison was out of town - probably with Emily following behind her. In the end, though, she decided -  _fuck it._  She wasn't going to be pushed out of Hank's the way that she had been pushed out of so many other things in her life. She wasn't the same kid she was back in high school. Not that she had been a pushover in high school. Even then, she always knew that she could stand up to anyone. Well, everyone except for one person.

 _Emily_.

Paige could never go against Emily. She would never allow herself to. In the end, she always stepped aside - even if that meant taking a break from swimming, when they were both vying for the captain's spot.

Even if it meant letting Alison think that she had won.

But those days of stepping aside were over. The previous night was an anomaly. Paige had been caught off guard, so she fell back into those old patterns automatically. But, once she knew what she was up against, she was back on track. She was ready to stand and fight.

* * *

"Why, if it isn't Paige McCullers!"

Paige turned in the direction of the woman's voice, her head swimming as the room swirled with the movement.

"Where the hell have you been? I haven't seen you here since forever!"

"I had a little… I had a little…" Paige's words were slurred and her eyes unfocused as she tried to form coherent thought. "I went through a little…" She burped, all of a sudden, and, all of a sudden, it was the funniest thing in the world. "Pardon me," she said overly dramatically, straightening her back up. "What I was saying was…" She furrowed her brow in confusion. "What was the question?"

Paige didn't usually go to Hank's to get drunk. Usually, she went for the companionship. This night was different. She had only one goal: To get drunk and forget all about Emily and their fight. She was tired of trying to find a way to get past Emily's final words about a bitter, old woman.

The woman who had greeted her was sitting on the barstool next to hers with a coquettish grin, coyly tucking her hair behind her ear, letting her hand remain on her neck as she twisted a strand of her blond locks between her fingers. Her face was blurring in and out, just on the fringes of discernibility, as Paige tried her hardest to get her eyes to focus.  _Tammi._  That was it. Tammi with an "i" - and she certainly had an eye for Paige McCullers, though, for various reasons, they had never hooked up. Paige's face contorted into a half-smile, which her drunk mind thought was sexy but actually looked a little creepy. Maybe tonight would be the night. Maybe a substitute, to get her mind off of the real thing, was just what the doctor ordered.

 _Doctor... doctor..._ Tammi was a doctor of some sort. Not a medical doctor, but a doctor of humanities or letters, or some silliness like that.  _No matter,_  Paige thought.  _Doctor Tammi is definitely going to earn some extra credit in anatomy tonight._

Paige raised her finger towards Madisyn, who obligingly came over to refill her glass. Vodka. Paige preferred gin, but whenever she got drunk on gin, she ended up spending the night with her head in the toilet bowl, giving back everything she'd eaten or drunk that day. It took her a while, but she eventually took the hint: No matter how much she loved the way it tasted, her stomach couldn't stand gin, and her stomach got the final vote. You can only go back to the same old destructive patterns so many times before you're forced to admit what they're doing to you.

That doesn't mean that you don't miss the old patterns. Paige loved gin, and, of course, she missed it, but, when it came down to it, vodka could serve the same purpose. Drunk is drunk. In the end, it doesn't matter how you get there.

* * *

Emily bit her bottom lip as she stood in front of the doorway at Hank's. She was already fighting back tears. But she knew that she had to tough it out and go inside. She didn't even think that Paige would be back at the bar so soon, but she was desperate. Paige wasn't taking her calls, and she really needed to explain the situation with Alison. She needed Paige to know that she had sent Alison packing - literally.

Emily pushed open the doors and scanned the room. When her eyes caught up with Paige, her heart stopped. She tried to swallow, but there was a huge lump in her throat. Paige was talking to some woman Emily hadn't seen before. She looked slightly familiar; maybe from the early days, when Paige used to post pictures from Hank's on Instagram. Whoever the woman was, it was obvious that she and Paige knew each other. Watching them interact, Emily had flashbacks to the hoedown, when she watched from a distance as Paige chatted and laughed with her other friends. Paige was so confident and comfortable with them. Emily wasn't used to seeing her that way back then, except in the pool. Outside of the swim team, whenever Paige was with Emily, she was always deferential; tentative. It had been a shock for Emily to see her with those other girls, so self-assured.

Emily wanted to go over, as she had done back at the hoedown, and claim her girl. She wanted it with all her might, but her legs wouldn't move. Her body swiveled a couple of times as she tried to make herself go over, but, in the end, she turned around and exited the bar. She had hurt Paige so much - so often - back in high school. Who was she to step in and interfere this time, when Paige had a shot at happiness?

At least that's what Emily told herself as she walked back to her car. They were noble thoughts, but they weren't reality. The reality was that she was afraid. The reality was that their roles had reversed since high school. This time, Emily was the one who lost her confidence around Paige. The new Paige had shown that she could stand up for herself; that she could say no to Emily. And Emily didn't think that she could handle being rejected by Paige a third time. She sobbed a couple of times in the driver's seat, shaking her head. She had to let go. Wiping her eyes and letting out a pained sigh, she backed out of the parking spot and headed home.

* * *

"Tammi," Paige burped out after slamming down the vodka. She leaned towards Tammi's barstool with her hand extended to caress Tammi's cheek. The movement was too much for her in her drunken state; the angle a bit too severe. She tumbled off of her stool and onto the floor.

In a second, Madisyn had athletically jumped over the bar and lifted Paige off the ground by the belt loops on the back of her jeans. Paige put her hands up, to show that she was okay, and then pointed at the object in Madisyn's hand. "Um... excuse me, barkeep, but I believe that's my phone," she said, trying to sound amusing and clever.

Maidsyn turned the phone around and showed Paige the screen. "I got you an Uber," she said in a soft, soothing voice. Paige raised her finger to protest. "Go home, Paige," Madisyn urged her, sympathetically but firmly.

Paige put her hand down and nodded her head slowly, embarrassed, but not too drunk to know that Madisyn was right. She wasn't the first drunk patron whom Madisyn had sent home in an Uber. Paige turned in the direction of Tammi, who was standing behind her with her hand on her back, to make sure that she was all right. Paige shrugged her shoulders and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Bye," Tammi said softly, drawing out the word, her eyebrows raised hopefully.

"Some other night, perhaps," Paige mumbled. She fished a roll of mints from the inside pocket of her jacket and popped one into her mouth.

She really didn't like the taste of vodka.

Deep down, she was happy that nothing had come of her minor flirtation with Tammi. It wouldn't have been fair to Tammi - or to herself. She quickly adjusted her hair and her jacket and stumbled towards the door.

Madisyn looked at one of the busboys and tilted her head in Paige's direction. He nodded and set off, following Paige at a discreet distance (so as not to injure her pride even more) until she was safely inside the car.

It had been stupid of Paige to get drunk. It was even stupider of her to get drunk over Emily. She shook her head, grateful, at least, that she hadn't done anything even stupider. She sighed heavily, thinking how much easier her life had been when Emily was three and a half states away.

The Uber driver had some sappy radio station on, playing sappy love songs. Paige supposed that it was a deliberate choice on her driver's part, as a way to generate bigger tips: Picking up couples on a Friday night; if the music puts the girl in the mood, the guy might feel a little more generous.

The station was doing a dedication – Paige didn't know that radio stations even did those anymore. She listened as some woman kept going on and on, making a dedication to her high school sweetheart, with whom she'd reconnected after thirty-four years.

 _Thirty-four years?_  The thought alone was almost enough to sober Paige up.  _That's a lifetime!_  Strictly speaking, it was more than a lifetime for Paige, who was still a couple of years shy of her thirtieth birthday. She couldn't imagine wasting all that time in bars looking for someone like Tammi to distract her for the evening.

And the night hadn't even been about Tammi. It had been about Alison. Paige kicked herself. How long would she let herself be caught up in that trap? Maybe Caleb was right. Maybe she - not Emily - was the one who needed to get over Alison. After all, Emily had left Alison at the table and run after her. Paige had never seen that before. It wasn't like Rosewood, after Alison reappeared, and Emily tried to convince the two of them that they needed to get along. This time, it was obviously another one of Alison's tricks, and Paige knew that she shouldn't punish Emily for Alison's shenanigans.

Nor should she punish herself. She could hold onto her pride and tell herself that she won - that she put Emily in her place - and go on with her life, settling for a series of Tammis instead of taking her shot with the real thing - the one and only true love of her life.

The choice wasn't hard.

"Stop the car!" Paige screamed urgently.

The driver glanced at her in the rear view mirror and then whipped his head around purposefully. "You going to throw up?" he asked, panicked. He took a peek at the road and steadied the steering wheel before returning his accusing gaze to Paige. He really hated these drunk-runs from Hawkeye Hank's. Every time that address showed up in the app, he swore to himself that it would be his last pick-up from there.

Paige waved her hand at him weakly. "No, no… I…"

"Don't you dare throw up on my brand new upholstery!"

"No, I'm fine," Paige assured him, trying to sound sober. "I… I caught it. I'm good."

That moment of panic by the driver was enough to knock Paige back into her senses. She wasn't going to show up drunk on Emily's doorstep, in the middle of the night. Emily deserved better than that.

All those years in high school, she wanted Emily to be the one who came to her. And that's exactly what Emily had done. She had made the effort. She had humbled herself. And, despite a total lack of encouragement from Paige, she had persisted.

Paige was going to go to Emily. That much was decided. But she wasn't going to stumble over there, drunk out of her mind, and babble some incoherent make-up speech. She was going to do it the right way. The only problem was, she didn't have a clue what the right way was. She only knew that she needed to figure it out, quickly.

* * *

_**dolphin_shark _**  hey, caleb._

_**batcave5150 _**  hang on._

Paige swiped up on her phone. "Caleb?"

"You sound hungover."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Fair enough." Caleb heard the sound of slurping, followed by a contented, "Ahhh."

"Starbucks?"

"You know it," Paige muttered. "I was  _that_  girl, stumbling into Starbucks at 9 in the morning in dark sunglasses and my walk-of-shame clothes."

"Okay, Paige..." Caleb didn't sound judgmental. He sounded almost fatherly.

"Nothing like that," Paige croaked, realizing what she had just said.

"Oh, thank God," Caleb exclaimed. "I mean, not that you're not entitled, just... well, it's not going to help you get to where you need to go."

Paige sighed. "Yeah, about that..."

"Did you take my advice?"

"I thought a lot about it."

Paige gave him a quick update on the Emily situation, which turned into a rather lengthy history lesson of their relationship's ups and downs since middle school. Much of it Caleb knew, and he'd been getting a lot of the more recent history from Hanna, but Paige needed to put it into words; to process it through in her own mind before she tried to process it with Emily. Caleb was a good sounding-board. That attribute pretty much came with the territory, dating Hanna.

Paige's FitBit was going off the charts, counting her steps as she paced around her apartment, arms flailing, while she talked to Caleb. It was registering stress levels that she hadn't seen since Stanford.

"You've always put her first," Caleb said, recapping what he'd heard, "but, lately, you've realized that you need to start looking out for yourself."

"Yeah." Paige rolled her eyes. "And look where that got me. I swear, Caleb, I don't even know how I can be so…"

"Paige." His voice was steady as ever; no ups and downs, no panic. It was the calming influence that Paige needed at that moment. "It's never wrong to look out for yourself. Or for Emily. But you have to realize – both of you have to realize – that it's not either-or. You have to learn how to look out for yourselves – the 'selves' that you two are becoming together."

Paige chuckled. "I don't remember you being so Zen."

"I'm not telling you anything that you already know."

"I suppose…" Paige's voice trailed off. "But what I don't know is, how do I make it right?"

"Just go."

"Just… go." Paige's tone made it obvious that she didn't know what he meant.

"Yeah. Don't overcomplicate things. Just go to her. You'll figure it out. You guys always have."

That reminder was just what Paige needed to hear. She had been so hung up on the problems of their relationship that she had forgotten about the good times. The times they'd figured it out. The time Emily told that she was looking for someone when she came to Paige's house, or the time she told her that she wanted to be with her, and only her, away from Rosewood. Those confessions had followed hard times. There had always been an up after the down. "Away from this town…" Emily's words echoed in Paige's ear. They had made it. It wasn't Stanford, but they were out of Rosewood – away from all its intrigue and drama. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was their time.

* * *

Paige paced back and forth in the lobby of Emily's building, trying to figure out what she was going to say and how she was going to say it.

_Just go…_

Caleb's voice echoed in her mind. She told herself that she would know what to say when she was face to face with Emily. She wasn't sure that she believed that, but she either had to go with that plan or waste another night at home, hoping in vain that she would be able to figure it all out in advance. In the end, she realized that it didn't matter. She could be pretty convincing, when she was talking to herself, but whenever she saw Emily, she forgot what she wanted to say.

 _All I can remember is I love you._  She had been pretty harsh with Emily. Maybe, if she said it just right, it would be enough.

Paige's heart was pounding as she paced back and forth in the lobby. She swiveled quickly and gasped as she almost crashed into the pizza guy, who had come up behind her. Something told her that this was it; this was her chance. As the pizza guy pulled out his phone to see where he was going, Paige blurted out, "Apartment 49C?"

He looked her up and down. "Fields?"

Paige smiled widely. That sealed it. Even though it was just a pizza, it was as if the Fates were on her side. She nodded, lying confidently as she pointing at the box in his hand, "That's my pizza!"

The guy handed the phone to her, showing her where to sign with her finger, to approve the charges and confirm the delivery. As she signed Emily's name, the pizza guy gave a nod to the flowers in her other hand. "Big night?"

She crossed her fingers, handing him back his phone. "Wish me luck!"

He checked her signature as he handed over the pizza. "Good luck, Em!" It was then that Paige realized she had signed her name as "Em Fields."

"Oh!" Page caught him before he made it out of the door, opening her wallet and handing him a twenty. He deserved to know that Em Fields was a generous tipper. Besides, she could use all the good karma that she could get.

* * *

Paige rang the doorbell three times, in quick succession, when she got to Emily's apartment. She knew how annoying Emily found that, and she smiled at the thought that she was both literally and figuratively pushing Emily's buttons.

"Just a second," Emily called out pleasantly from inside the apartment. On hearing that, Paige mischievously rang the bell another three times.

"Just a second!" Emily's voice was louder and more annoyed.

It was bad enough that she was going to eat an entire large meat lover's pizza by herself, alone in her apartment on a Friday night. She didn't need attitude from the pizza guy on top of it.

She muted the TV – the first movie of her planned marathon on the Hallmark Romance Channel – and slid into her oversized fuzzy slippers, pulling a well-worn but comfy robe over her pajamas. A box of tissues and a box of wine sat on the coffee table, awaiting her return. They would both be empty by the time her night was over.

It wasn't that she was depressed, exactly. She'd had plenty of time to work through that. She just needed a night off from everything.

Paige was about to ring the bell again when she saw the doorknob twist and completely lost all of her nerve. Her heart was pounding again. She had the feeling that she was about to make the biggest mistake of her young life.

Emily, a full head of steam, was all set to give the pizza guy a piece of her mind. Her jaw dropped at the sight of Paige on the other side of the threshold. "Paige?" she said weakly.

Emily knew that a first-year assistant coach didn't make a lot of money, but she had no idea that Paige was moonlighting as a pizza delivery guy. When she saw the flowers, it seemed to good to be true. "I…" She still wasn't quite putting it together. "Paige?"

You could have given her a hundred guesses, and she never would have predicted that she would see Paige when she opened the door.

"Emily, I'm so sorry…"

Emily threw her arms around Paige. In the confusion, the pizza box and the flowers tumbled to the floor. "Don't tell me you're sorry," she said, clinging tightly to Paige. "Tell me you're back."

"I'm…" Paige, too, was having a hard time keeping up with the turn of events. "I'm… Yes, Em. I'm here. I'm back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... there's the hug that we all needed after that last chapter! :)


	7. No More Lonely Nights

Emily stepped away from Paige with a soft, timid smile, trying to find somewhere safe to look. "Oh," she said, when she caught sight of the flowers on the floor out of the corner of her eye. Kneeling gracefully to the ground, she picked them up.

"Here, let me..." Paige knelt next to her and picked up the pizza box, lifting the lid and cringing at the state of the pizza. She stood to her feet slowly and, with a serious face, announced, "I think we can salvage it."

There was a metaphor in there somewhere; something about picking up the pieces of their damaged relationship and putting them back together, but they had more important things on their mind.

Emily stood up and sniffed the bouquet, brushing her hair to the side as she did. Suddenly, she remembered how she was dressed, and she felt very small. Of course, Paige would pick that night to come over; the night when she was dressed like a lonely old spinster who had completely given up on life. She started to laugh. There was no use trying to hide from how she looked, so she decided that she was just going to own it. Stepping to the side, she gestured theatrically with her hand to usher Paige inside, towards the living room, where the box of tissues and the box of wine sat on the table, and the muted TV was still showing some Hallmark romance movie.

"As you can see," she said with a faux-serious look, "I had big plans for tonight."

Paige played along. "Sorry, I guess I should've called before I came."

Emily stopped in her tracks. When Paige, who was a few steps in front of her, picked up on it, she stopped and turned around to see what was up.

"Yeah," Emily asked, a bit harshly (considering how happy she was to see Paige), "why  _did_  you come by tonight?"

As happy as she was, Emily was stunned. After Alison's little stunt, Emily had resigned herself to the fact that she would never see Paige again. It had always come down to Alison; the one thing that their love had never seemed to be able to conquer. Alison knew that, too, of course. And Emily knew how wounded Alison felt by the fact that she left Rosewood, choosing Paige. More than that, she was certain that Alison had been following the developments in Iowa closely, choosing just the right moment to pounce, to put a final nail in the coffin of their relationship.

And yet, Paige was there, in her apartment. With pizza and flowers.

Paige took a deep breath. "I came by because I didn't want to waste any more time. I came by because..."

Emily put two fingers on Paige's lips to silence her. She moved closer, letting her left hand, which was holding the bouquet, fall to her side. Her other hand went behind Paige's neck, and she kissed her long and hard. It had been so long since they shared a real kiss. Much too long.

Emily didn't want it to end. Obviously. But it wasn't just how good it felt to be kissing Paige again. Deep inside, her fear was still there; the fear that, as soon as the kiss ended, the spell would be broken, and Paige would run away again.

Paige, who was still holding onto the pizza box throughout the kiss, worried that her arm would cramp from the awkward angle. Still, she stayed where she was, her arm firmly around Emily's waist. She would stay there for as long as it took.

When Emily stepped back from the kiss, she gave Paige a questioning look.

_Are you okay? Was that okay? Are we going to be okay?_

She took the box from Paige's hand and set it on the coffee table, so that she had an excuse to look towards the table and not at Paige as she asked the question that had her heart pounding.

"You're not going to run away from me again, are you?"

Paige took Emily's shoulders and turned her around, clutching her close to her heart. "No way," she whispered. "Never."

Emily nodded against Paige's chest and lifted her head, nuzzling her cheek against Paige's. "I won't run away, either," she assured her.

Paige took a seat on the couch and extended her arm. Emily nestled in, with her head on Paige's shoulder and her arm across Paige's waist.

Paige could feel Emily trembling, so she kissed the top of her head to let her know that she was there. The trembling got stronger, and Paige realized that Emily was sobbing silently. She stroked her cheek. "Hey...  _Em_ ," she whispered.

Emily looked up, forcing a smile. "It's okay, Paige," she assured her. "I'm okay." Paige handed her a tissue, which she used to dab at her eyes. "Paige, I... I know that we need to talk, but..."

"It's okay, Em," Paige whispered in her ear.

Emily shook her head, sitting up. "No, we really need to," she forced out, "but, can we just... just be together for a little while longer before we..."

It still seemed like a dream. And Emily was still worried that talking things through about Alison would turn her night into a nightmare. It wasn't too selfish to ask for just one more night together, before whatever lay ahead of them the next day.

"Of course," Paige whispered. She pulled Emily back into her previous position, under the protection of her arm. "So what are we watching?" she asked, trying to sound upbeat, in an attempt to take Emily's mind off of things.

Emily looked at the TV as a series of promos cycled across the bottom of the screen:

**Now Playing: Love's Complicated**

**Up Next: Anything For Love**

**At 11:00: Lead With Your Heart**

Emily sat up quickly, her left foot falling on the floor followed quickly by her right. She picked up the remote and turned the TV off, then curled up on the couch again, back in Paige's embrace. She knew how Paige felt about the Hallmark Channel. Actually, Emily wasn't a huge fan of it, either - except in times when she wanted to wallow in depression. But there was no more need to wallow.

Paige felt guilty for thinking about the pizza in the middle of that moment. She didn't want it to get cold, but eating it would mean getting up to get plates and another wine glass from the kitchen, and there was no way that she was going to move. She was where she needed to be. She was Emily's rock. It was a great feeling.

* * *

They sat there, together, in silence, until Paige heard Emily's breath even out and felt the rhythmic rise and fall of Emily's chest against her side. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't leave Emily, but it didn't seem right for her to stay. They couldn't spend the rest of the night huddled together on the couch. She took a deep breath as she thought it over, finally standing, careful not to wake Emily. She put the box of wine on top of the refrigerator and made room for the pizza on one of the shelves inside it. She drank Emily's leftover half-glass of wine and rinsed out the glass. Back in the living room, she stood over Emily with her hands on her hips, squaring herself for what she was about to do. Leaning over the couch, she picked up her sleeping ex-girlfriend who, without waking, moaned contentedly and wrapped her arms around Paige's neck, smiling in her sleep.

Paige took her to the bedroom and laid her on her bed, relieved that she was already in sleeping attire, so that she wouldn't have to worry about trying to get her changed. She took off Emily's slippers and put them under the bed, then put Emily, robe and all, under the blanket, leaving her with a soft kiss to the cheek.

"Mmm... Paige," Emily said. Paige wasn't quite sure that she was awake until she sat up and reached for Paige's hand. When that happened, Paige took a seat next to her on the bed. Emily couldn't look at her for what she was about to ask. "Paige, I know it's inappropriate and... too soon, or whatever, but..." Emily paused, and Paige squeezed her hand. "... could you just... not leave me tonight? I promise nothing will happen, and we'll talk tomorrow, I swear, but would you just..."

"Of course," Paige said, in a deep, sincere voice. She squeezed Emily's hand. "I'm here for you, whatever you need, remember?"

Emily felt that she needed to ask harder; to do some more convincing, but she just smiled instead. "Thank you," she said softly. She put her hands at her side, about to get up, but Paige stopped her.

"I got it." She stroked Emily's cheek again and gave her a quick kiss. "Wait right here. I'll be back."

Paige went to Emily's dresser and found something that she could wear to bed. Before she went to the bathroom to change, she turned around to check on Emily. Emily was sitting under the blanket with her knees bent and her hands hugging her legs. She hadn't taken her eyes off of Paige the entire time. She was smiling, still not really believing that this was actually happening; that Paige was truly back. Paige raised the sweatpants and jersey that she'd selected and Emily nodded, mouthing a kiss.

As soon as Paige was on the other side of the door, Emily let out a silent screech, stamping her feet against the mattress in excitement. She wanted to tell Hanna. She wanted to tell the world - but they would have to wait.

Everything, all of the setbacks, all of the despair, all of the work, had been worth it. They were back - and, this time, Emily wasn't going to let go.

* * *

Paige took a long look at herself in the bathroom mirror. She turned her head and looked again, from a couple of different angles. She was trying to figure out what was different. She couldn't see anything, but she could feel that something was different. It was the same feeling that she had after the first time she and Emily made love. This night, she thought, was also a new beginning; a milestone of a different sort.

Paige climbed into the bed and Emily rolled over, turning her back to Paige.  _Little spoon._  She took Paige's arm with her as she turned, holding it close to her body. She looked over her shoulder, to make sure that Paige was okay with the arrangement, and Paige kissed at her, her lips not quite able to connect . But that was fine. They both got the point.

Emily lay in bed smiling, playing with Paige's fingers, until she fell asleep.

When she woke up, Paige's arm was still there, holding onto her. She had missed that. God, how she'd missed it. She stroked the bare skin up and down with her fingers. She could tell by the gentle landing of Paige's breaths against her neck that the strokes wouldn't wake her.

In the dim, pre-dawn light, Emily was reminded that she had fallen asleep in her comfy clothes. She felt a tinge of regret; Paige deserved to wake up and see her in something pretty. For a moment, she thought about getting up and changing into something nicer, but, in the end, she thought better of it. It wasn't that it was too soon for her to start being flirty with Paige again. Maybe it  _was_ ; Emily didn't know. And she didn't really care. She was too comfortable, lying there with Paige, to waste her energy thinking about it. It was an incredible feeling, just being comfortable with Paige again; incredible to know that they didn't have to feel sexy. Comfortable was enough.

Emily scooted back closer to Paige, and Paige mumbled something in her sleep. Emily kissed her hand, to let her know that everything was still fine.

* * *

When the sun was fully up, Emily woke Paige with a kiss. "Good morning," she said, half smiling, half worried that magic had faded.

Paige scowled for a second or two, trying to figure out where she was. As she came to her senses, she smiled back at Emily. "Hey."

It was unusual for Paige to sleep so late in the morning. Her internal clock usually woke her up before dawn, and, even when she slept later, if all else failed, the sun woke her. But she was in no hurry to wake up on this particular morning. It was as if her subconscious mind chose to stay asleep as long as possible, as long as she could hold onto Emily. When Emily awakened her with a kiss, it was like a fairy tale. Only, with the roles reversed - Sleeping Beauty's kiss awakening her Princess Charming.

Emily gave Paige another kiss and stroked her cheek. "Are you hungry?"

Paige took a deep breath. They had both fallen asleep without eating. "I'm starving," she admitted.

"Why don't you go take a shower?" Emily tipped her chin towards the bathroom. "I'll see what I figure out in the kitchen."

"Okay." Paige kissed her before she realized what her breath must have smelled like. When she realized, she quickly covered her mouth and made a quick exit, heading for the bathroom.

Emily rolled her eyes. It wasn't the first kiss they'd shared with morning breath.

"There are some towels in the... thing!"

"Found them!"

Emily sat in bed for a minute. She heard the toilet flush, then heard Paige rustle around for a few minutes, until she located Emily's emergency toothbrush. Emily bit the tip of her index finger, a little giddy that their old familiar habits were being revived. Her smile got bigger and bigger with anticipation as she waited for Paige to finish brushing her teeth and head into the shower. There was silence for a moment, between the time that the water in the sink stopped and the water in the shower started. Another moment later, Paige squealed, "What the... Emily?"

Emily pulled a strand of hair across her smile and waited in silence, knowing what it was that Paige had found.

Paige showed up in the doorway, one hand holding a towel to her chest, and the other holding a bottle of Tresemmé Coconut and Aloe shampoo. "Where in the world did you find this?" Paige asked, her face lit up with excitement. "I've been looking all over the tri-county area - none of the stores out here carries it!"

"It's..." Emily said coyly, drawing out the suspense, "... It's from Rosewood, actually."

"Rosewood..." Paige said pensively, crinkling her forehead. "You brought this out here from Rosewood?"

"My parents sent it to me, actually." Paige still looked confused. "I didn't ask them to," Emily added quickly, reaching her hand out as she said it. "I just mentioned to them that they must not sell it out here, because you... smelled... different"

Paige smiled widely, shaking her head in disbelief. She opened the bottle and took a deep whiff with her eyes closed. "Ahhhh..." A second later, it hit her:  _How could Emily have known to leave the shampoo in the shower for her?_  "But, wait a minute, she asked. "How did you know that I was going come here last night - and that I would stay over?"

Emily bit her lip shyly. "I... didn't. Well, I didn't know that it was going to be  _last_  night, but..." She looked away from Paige. "I knew it was going to be  _some_  night." Emily climbed out of the bed and walked towards Paige. Face to face with her, she took a deep breath. "I never lost faith, Paige. Even after we had that fight. Even after I came to your apartment and you told me how you felt." Paige cringed at the memory. Emily chuckled slightly, looking off to the side, "Well, I threw it on the ground a couple of times and almost threw it down the garbage chute after that night," she admitted. She put her hands on Paige's shoulders, letting her fingers skate across the soft skin there. "But it was the only thing I had to hold onto. It was the only hope I had that we would be together again. So I couldn't let it go."

Paige really wanted to kiss her, but she knew that, if she did, the towel would fall. They weren't back at that point yet. Not by a long shot. "Close your eyes," she said in a deep voice.

"What?"

"Close your eyes."

Emily obediently closed her eyes, and Paige quickly wrapped the towel around herself, tucking it in so that it wouldn't fall away. "Okay," she said. When Emily opened her eyes, she kissed her. "I can't believe you did that for me."

* * *

Paige was a little on-edge at breakfast, trying to enjoy the time with Emily, but dreading the talk that she knew they would have to have afterwards. Her tenseness was making Emily nervous, too. The conversation - what little conversation there was - was stilted and awkward.

After they ate and cleaned up the dishes, they settled in on the couch, side by side, with the center cushion between them. Paige had her fingers intertwined in her lap, in a much-too-formal pose. Emily was leaning slightly on her right arm, which was planted on the center cushion. Every once in a while, they smiled over at each other, like two people on a first date who didn't quite know what to say.

"I guess we need to have our  _talk_ ," Emily said, to break the impasse.

Paige sighed. "Do we have to? Can't we go to the gym and just talk after lunch?"

Emily shrugged her shoulders. "I think a lot of the problems we've had over the years were because we never talked about things." She shrugged her shoulders again. "We always find an excuse to put it off, and then we end up sweeping everything under the rug."

"I know, I know," Paige said, her voice trailing off. "It's just..." She sighed, letting her shoulders drop. "Jeez, how come it's so much easier to be honest about what we're feeling when we're angry at each other?"

Emily tightened her lips and thought it over. "I can make you angry, if you want," she offered. She leaned over and started pinching Paige in the side - not enough to hurt, just enough to tickle her.

Paige laughed as she tried to push Emily's hands away, finally putting her hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, okay!"

Emily rubbed Paige's shoulder as an apology. Then, sitting up fully, she took Paige's hand into her lap and sandwiched it between her hands. She cleared her throat and managed a smile. "Paige, you know, I was listening to everything that you said when you were angry with... when  _we_  were angry with each other. And, you were right. I get it. I did tend to take you for granted. Even if... Even if I didn't mean to." Emily's eyes wandered around the room. "You were my rock; you were the one who was always there, no matter what. And I didn't really appreciate that until you left. I mean, even when you went off to Stanford, I knew that you would be back in Rosewood, eventually. But, Paige..." - Emily's eyes fixed on Paige's - "... when you moved to Iowa, I had to think what my life would be like without you. I had to think a lot about it. And I didn't like what I saw. I didn't like it at all." Emily pushed the the hair away from her face and took Paige's hand again, holding it up between the two of them. "So, I want you to know that I'm sorry, Paige. I never meant to take you for granted, but I know that I did. And I know that it was wrong. And..." She exhaled slowly, with a slight sniffle. "Well, yeah. I'm sorry."

Paige squeezed Emily's hand. "I'm sorry, too," she said. "You're right, I did feel that you took me for granted, and I engaged in a lot of... unhelpful behavior in response, because it really hurt. And I know I hurt you." - Emily shook her head, but Paige looked deep in her eyes. "I know I hurt you," she repeated. Paige shifted against the back cushion, looking off in he general direction of the kitchen. "I came out here to Iowa because I needed to get away. From you... from Rosewood... from all that baggage. I just needed to prove to myself that I could make it; that I could move on. But, the longer I was here, the more I kept wishing that you would come after me; that you thought that I was  _worth_  coming after." Paige scoffed at her admission and turned towards Emily. "Selfish, I know."

Emily rubbed Paige's shoulder. "No," she insisted. "Paige, that's not selfish. It's totally natural. We all want to feel that we're worth chasing after. We all need to know that the person we love is willing to fight for us. You showed me that over and over back in Rosewood. I came to Iowa to show you that it's not one-sided." Emily smiled shyly, adding, "Killer." It seemed out-of-context after all these years, and she was a little embarrassed saying it, but Paige pulled her close, hugging her tight, to let her know that she got why she said it, and that it meant a lot to her.

"But, I don't understand, though, Paige. If you wanted me to come after you, how come you rejected me when I did?

Paige smiled. "The heart and the head don't always want the same thing, Em. For most of my life, I chose to listen to my heart, and it ended up getting broken over and over again."

Emily looked down, ashamed. "I'm so sorry, Paige."

Paige lifted her chin. "I'm not telling you to make you feel bad. I just want to be honest."

Emily nodded sadly. "So, now, you decided to choose your heart again?"

Paige chuckled slightly, shaking her head. "I didn't have to," she whispered. "For once, my heart and my head are in agreement." After a pause, Paige concluded, "We trust you."

"Thank you," Emily said softly.

"Thank  _you_ ," Paige echoed.

"But Paige..." Emily put her hand on Paige's chest, to maintain contact. "... I have to be honest about what I'm feeling, too."

Paige nodded. "Okay."

"Well, it's just that... you." Emily took a deep breath. "You have a tendency to run and hide; to avoid conflict rather than dealing with things, and, if we're going to have a relationship together, we can't afford to do that with each other."

"I know," Paige said, dipping her head. "I know I've got to change, Emily"

"I don't want to change you," Emily said, lowering her head so that she could look Paige in the eye. "I want us both to grow, together. Like two strands of a vine that meet and intertwine, and, from that point, keep growing together, two parts of one whole. And, once they come together that way, there's no way to separate them without destroying them both."

Paige looked up with a smirk. "Kind of like 'Till death do us part?'" Paige rubbed her shoulder against Emily's. "Are you saying that you want to marry me, Emily Fields?" she teased.

Emily shrugged her shoulders, but she didn't deny it. She hadn't come to Iowa for a fling. She was in it for the long haul.

Paige cupped Emily's face in her hand and gave her a kiss. "Well, since we're being honest, I have to say, I like the sound of that."

Emily's face beamed as she drank in that statement for a moment. But the moment didn't last. There was still more to talk about. She leaned away from Paige, back to her side of the couch, drawing in on herself subconsciously. She was frightened and a little ashamed about the Alison situation, but she knew that they couldn't avoid it. "Paige," she said haltingly, "there's one more thing."

Paige picked up on the change in Emily's body language. There could be no doubt about what she was about to say. Paige's body stiffened and her face darkened. "No, Emily…"

Emily could sense that she was losing Paige – losing her to her self-loathing and fear. She turned to her and took her hand. "Paige, please let me explain," she pleaded.

Paige shook her head. "There's nothing to explain. It wasn't your fault. I know how she is." She was facing away from Emily and she refused to turn her head.

Emily scooted closer to Paige and touched her cheek. Paige conceded, turning her head to face forward, but still couldn't look at Emily. Emily put both of her hands around Paige's. Paige didn't pull away.

"I didn't know that she was coming," Emily said softly, squeezing Paige's hand. "And I knew why she wanted to go to Hank's. Of course I knew. I would've called you to warn you, but, Paige, you weren't speaking to me. And I thought that, if I texted you or left a message, you would've taken it the wrong way and thought I was taunting you."

Paige turned quickly and glared at Emily. Emily shrugged her shoulders helplessly. Things weren't going well, but she knew that it was better, in the long run, to get them out into the open, rather than letting them fester. She locked eyes with Paige sincerely. She wanted Paige to know that she was on her side.

Paige's shoulders dropped. Her ration overcame her jealousy and fear. "Yeah," she admitted softly. "I probably wouldn't have reacted well."

"She didn't stay with me," Emily made a point of saying. She looked away. "She was planning to, but I made it clear she wasn't welcome. I mean, she'll always be my friend…" Emily took a quick glance at Paige. Paige nodded slightly. Emily touched her cheek. "… but not if she tries to come between me and you."

Paige stood, pulling Emily with her and wrapping her in her arms for a long hug. Emily rubbed up from Paige's chest to her shoulders.

"You know," Emily said sheepishly, "I went back to Hank's the next night to try to explain things, but you were..." She looked briefly into Paige's eyes. "... otherwise occupied."

"Oh," Paige said, setting a little distance between herself and Emily. "How much did you see?"

The question made Emily nervous, but they were putting everything on the table, so she pressed onward. "I saw that she was getting flirty. And I saw that it was working."

"Yeah." Paige cleared her throat. "Well, you know how sometimes alcohol can lead you into a big mistake?"

"I know," Emily said sincerely. "And, it's fine, Paige, honestly. I mean, we weren't together..."

Paige shook her head. "Well, that night, alcohol kept me from a big mistake. I lost it, and Madisyn sent me home in an Uber before anything could happen. And, thank God for that. I wasn't interested in Tammi. It would have been the biggest mistake of my life. Well, one of the biggest, anyway."

Emily smiled, nodding contentedly; happy both for her sake and for Paige's that nothing had happened with Tammi.

"That was the night I realized that I didn't want to be without you," Paige admitted.

Emily's face brightened. "Really?"

Paige nodded. "Yeah. I'll tell you about it sometime."

"Okay," Emily said softly, biting a smile. There was still more to talk about, but they'd gotten off to a good start. They didn't have to cover it all in one shot. "So, what are you doing today?"

Paige laughed lightly, a little embarrassed. "I... I think I need to go work out."

Emily pouted and rubbed Paige's shoulders. "Couldn't you skip a day?"

Paige backed away from her, taking hold of both of her hands. "You don't understand, Em," she said earnestly. "I mean, I  _really_  need to work out." There was a look of nervous concern on her face.

Emily suddenly understood. It had been an emotional few hours. "Oh," she said softly. She giggled once, then giggled again, trying to stop herself from losing it completely. She took a step closer to Paige and rubbed her sides up and down. Looking up at her with puppy dog eyes, she asked, "Wouldn't you rather stay and work out with me?"

Paige's jaw dropped. "You don't think... It's not... It's not too soon?"

Emily shrugged her shoulders. They weren't kids anymore, and they weren't strangers either. And they had just talked about being more honest about what they were feeling.

"Okay," Paige said shyly.

Emily's face lit up. She couldn't keep herself from clapping her hands. Paige smiled and impulsively pulled Emily in, kissing her on top of the head.

"Do you remember our first time?" Emily asked.

"How could I ever forget it? " Paige smiled wistfully, shaking her head at the memory. "You told me that you were looking for someone..."

"And I came here." Emily pointed down to where they were standing, to indicate that she was updating the story, this time, referring to Iowa.

Paige leaned her head back, smiling as she thought back on those days. She had been so young, so insecure, and so full of guilt. At the time, she was afraid that she would never be able to earn Emily's forgiveness, it was amazing that Emily was there. Times had certainly changed. This time, when Emily came to her, it was Emily who was afraid of not getting Paige's forgiveness. And, this time, Paige was more confident, more secure in who she was - and in what they were.

But, still, she was as amazed that Emily had come. She stood there, reveling in the thought, with a far-off look in her eye.

Emily touched her cheek to regain her attention. "Don't look away."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was that too hacky of me, ending the story with that line? :(
> 
> Thanks so much to subway20 for sending me the lyrics to the song that I used for the title of this chapter, Paul McCartney's "No More Lonely Nights." They were so on-point for Emily's feelings in this story! In the end, I wasn't able to weave the lyrics into this chapter, but do yourself a favor and Google them.
> 
> Oh - and by the way - those were actual titles of Hallmark Romance Channel movies!
> 
> Big, big thanks to you all for sticking with this story! (There are still a couple of us Paily fic fans out there...) Special thanks, as always, to all who took the time to let me know what you thought - good, bad or indifferent.
> 
> I honestly love you all!


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